Maximilien Robespierre will always be associated in people’s minds with ‘the Terror’. In reality, he was not a dictator, but one of a group of committed revolutionaries in the National Convention. Within hours of his execution in July 1794 a myth began to circulate that he had been the sole mastermind behind ‘the Terror’. This myth was a way of exculpating the men who had also backed terror during the crisis of the ‘Year II’. Afterward, it was so much simpler for them to lay all the blame onto Robespierre. McPhee’s profound knowledge of the Revolution enables him to situate Robespierre in his context, showing not just how Robespierre affected the course of the Revolution, but how the Revolution changed Robespierre. This is simply by far the best recent study in English of Robespierre’s life.

There is little that has not been said about this readable, engaging, and deeply moving account of the disaster on 1 July 1916 – the worst day in the history of the British Army. Middlebrook’s book was a revelation when it first appeared; utilising recollections and stories from veterans, whom Middlebrook met and interviewed, giving it an immediacy and power that captivated readers. The book charts the birth and development of Britain’s New Armies and their subsequent destruction on the Somme. Piece-by-piece Middlebrook examines how the battle was planned and prepared, before going on to detail the progress of the fighting at set-times, allowing us to grasp the ebb and flow of the battle. This remains a much-loved classic. 

I’ve always loved the portraits the photographer Félix Nadar made of nineteenth-century Parisian celebrities such as Victor Hugo and Charles Baudelaire.

I went to this book—Nadar’s memoir—to learn more about the making of those pictures. There is a little bit of that, but what really gripped me was the weird and wonderful shaggy dog stories Nadar tells about his adventures in ‘aerostatic photography’—taking pictures from balloons.

Spoiler alert: there is a lot of crashing.

Looking back across six decades, MFK Fisher, one of the most astute and evocative travel and gastronomical authors ever to put pen to paper, recalls the year when everything for her was new: France, Europe, marriage, food, culture. Based in provincial Dijon, Mary studied French, shopped in the open markets, learned to cook, and jotted down astute observations concerning everyone she met, while her husband wrote his dissertation. My first encounter with Tours, in 1979, reminds me of Fisher’s encounter with Dijon in 1929. Like her, I was warmed by the joy of discovery, the sense that every stone and leaf, every living thing that I encountered had layers upon layers of meaning, and it was my job to uncover some of them, revealing meanings that no one had seen before. 

Choosing a Ken Follett book is difficult–there are so many.

Eye of the Needle, a spy thriller, was the book that put Follett at the forefront of thriller writers, and I normally go for books where the main character is a man, but, in this case, I’ve chosen this book. This one is about a gang of disparate women (the Jackdaws) sent to blow up a telephone exchange in France just before D-Day. Flick is the young British secret agent tasked with assembling the team before parachuting into France. 

I always aim to write perfectly feasible stories because life is too unpredictable to end with everyone living ‘happily ever after.’ Ken Follett also knows this, which is why this book is not only filled with deep secrets but also ends with tragedy – but I don’t want to spoil it for you! 

Set during World War I and inspired by letters of the author’s grandparents, this delightful novel is filled with a fetching cast of characters and borne along by the author’s entertaining sense of humor. The narration reminds us that many folks were suspicious of people with German ancestry during the war, even though they were American citizens and even using the common term “gesundheit,” and that children of German immigrants were drafted to fight against their parents’ former countrymen.

Young Iowa men were trained into soldiering, where there were still rivalries—some about girls back home, some about German sympathies—and sent across to fight the Kaiser’s troops in France. Some didn’t return home, some came back with broken bodies. There is a compelling scene with wounded veterans in a local hospital, at least one scarred on the inside and fighting his own private battle.

This winsome story also carries themes of… show more.

This book is only available in French, but I include it because it provides such an impressive overview of a period when French cooking began to establish itself as Europe’s pre-eminent cuisine. I referred to it frequently during my own research into French gastronomy. In a few short pages we learn about the emergence of the first celebrity chefs and food critics, the evolution of how food was served in polite society in France and other parts of Europe, and the way in which new ingredients such as maize and potatoes became staples of the peasant diet. There is also a section on Napoleon’s own culinary preferences, which reveals more about the tastes of the common soldier than the general.

I should have read this book years ago----an utter delight. The stream of anecdotes, by turn hilarious and poignant, brings Picasso, Stein herself, Hemingway and all the other luminaries of the 1920s strutting and slinking across the page. I already knew a lot about this period, from art history and other sources, but much of this was new and in every way fresh. If you love Paris, don't delay as I did----jump right in!

The first time I went to Paris, I found a copy of this book at a bouquiniste on the Quai de la Tournelle. I can honestly say it has never left my bedside. Colette, born Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette in 1873, was a ferocious talent, a novelist, memoirist, journalist, and colossal French cultural figure until her death in 1954. Earthly Paradise is an autobiography in essays, and hers is an extraordinary story. Born in small-town Burgundy, she was a showgirl at the Moulin Rouge, a traveling performer, was married twice, lived as a lesbian for a decade, had a facelift in the 1920s and at the height of her literary fame, opened a beauty salon in Paris. She was to the core a sensualist and though she claimed to dislike feminism, she was a tower of female strength. But the reason this book—just one of her fifty-five—endures is her achingly gorgeous writing.… show more.

This is an inspiring, well-researched novel. Rosenberg introduces us to the woman who created Brut Champagne.

Mme. Pommery is determined to support her family. With no experience and no one willing to teach her the art of making champagne, she defies societal restrictions on women, a greedy banker, and even the Prussian Army to become a successful vigneron.

This courageous and forward-thinking young woman reminds me of the protagonist in one of my novels. Though our stories are set one hundred years apart, both of our protagonists are young, determined women who make their way in the world of winemaking fighting their society’s restrictions on women.