Recommendations please

[WICKES]

I'd like something French, but light, warm, comical and good. I'm looking for something for my mother, who is a bit of a Francophile and has just finished Daudet's Notes From My Windmill, so anything in that vein would be great (the more modern it is the better. Does anyone know of anything contemporary?)...please, nothing surreal or existential- no Camus, Sartre etc. And nothing too heavy- no Stendhal or Proust. She also loves detective novels, so something similar to the Maigret novels would be welcome.

Thanks everyone :smile5:

[Emil Miller]

I'd like something French, but light, warm, comical and good. I'm looking for something for my mother, who is a bit of a Francophile and has just finished Daudet's Notes From My Windmill, so anything in that vein would be great (the more modern it is the better. Does anyone know of anything contemporary?)...please, nothing surreal or existential- no Camus, Sartre etc. And nothing too heavy- no Stendhal or Proust. She also loves detective novels, so something similar to the Maigret novels would be welcome.

Thanks everyone :smile5:

I can recommend Daudet's 'Contes du Lundi' (Monday stories ) so-called because they were originally published in the Monday edition of the newspaper Le Soir, or La Maison Tellier by Maupassant. In a more modern vein, Francoise Sagan's novels Aimez-vous Brahms?, Un Certain Sourire or Bonjour Tristesse, though not comical, are well written and make for light but serious reading . I'm pretty sure that Sagan's books are available in translation but not certain about the Daudet and Maupassant.

[fobmongrel]

I'd recommend Amelie Nothomb. Hmmm.. "Tuer le père" is a good one.

[mal4mac]

Chocolat by Joanne Harris (she's British, but her mother is French, and the novel is set in France...) Light, warm, comical and good describes it very well. Give your mum a box of chocolates along with it...

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is another good one.