Bent Northrop Memorial Library

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues--gravediggers, groundskeepers, and a priest--visit her to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee she offers them. Her life is lived to the rhythms of their funny, moving confidences. Violette's routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of Julien Sole--local...

"A rollicking historical account of Marguerite Steinheil ('the Red Widow"), a real-life French femme fatale who used her influence to arrange governmental appointments, blackmailed her opponents, and may have even attempted to poison those who got in the way of her agenda--and also mysteriously survived a home invasion that left her husband and mother dead, leaving the police with more questions than answers. For readers of The Radium Girls and Sin...

"Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight co-workers…each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide. When the co-founder of Snoop, a trendy London-based...

It is the story of Sterne's fictional travel through both countries, particularly France. Sterne made two trips within the continent, in 1762-64 and 1765-66, but the book is not about his errands, but those of parson Yorick's (a character in "Tristram Shandy"). With a less acid and outrageous humor than in his previous work, Sterne anyway mixes the picaresque with an ironic and, frequently, hilarious philosophical irony. Yorick begins by trying to...

Struggling to run her business and care for her newborn, sleep-deprived Aimée Leduc reluctantly takes the case of a French Gypsy boy whose dying mother has been kidnapped by adversaries who would hide a dangerous secret about Aimée's murdered father. "Paris, April 1999: Aimee Leduc has her work cut out for her--running her detective agency and fighting off sleep-deprivation as she tries to be a good single mother to her new bebe. The last thing...

Gentile architect Lucien Bernard never thought much of the Jews in his Nazi-occupied Paris, but that was before an irresistible offer to create innovative hiding places. After accepting a job to create hidden hiding spaces for Jews, Lucien conceals Jews behind a painting, in a drainpipe, and inside a column. Soon enough, Lucien's indifference gives way to humanity as his personal connection to the suffering Jews grows.

Myron is summoned to Paris at the behest of an old lover, Terese. She is in unspecified trouble and needs his help. When he gets there, he discovers that her husband has been murdered and she is the main suspect. The interesting thing is that more than one blood-type has been discovered at the scene - and the other blood can only be attributed to her daughter. But she died 10 years before. As Myron and Terese try to find out exactly what's going on,...

The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague. Barbara Tuchman reveals both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived. Here are the guilty passions, loyalties and treacheries,...

'The very quintessence of French romance' The Times

'Soaked in Parisian atmosphere, this lovely, clever, funny novel will have you rushing to the Eurostar post-haste. . . . the perfect French holiday read' Daily Mail

Described as 'Parisian perfection' by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, The Red Notebook is a charming, quirky love story from one of the UK's favourite French authors.

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"A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed and award-winning author Rebecca Makkai. In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic...