"Available in English for the first time, the latest astonishing, bestselling, and award-winning book by Annie Ernaux. The Years is a personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present -- even projections into the future -- photos, books, songs, radio, television and decades of advertising, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect,...

How to get along with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love--such questions arise in most people's lives. They are all versions of a bigger question: how do you live? How do you do the good or honorable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy? This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Monatigne, perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official and wine-grower,...

A controversial portrait of the nineteenth-century French literary master offers insight into his achievements, creative process, and personal life, from his lovers and enemies to his school studies and reading choices.

After years of health problems, but none with his heart, the author, at age eighty-two, was told that he needed immediate surgery to clear his blocked arteries. On what he knew might very well be his deathbed, he reflected on his many losses and accomplishments, and on all that remained to be done. Fortunately, he survived the life-threatening heart surgery to turn those reflections into a book which discusses his affection for his family both departed...

"When Simone de Beauvoir was a little girl, her father would proudly boast that she had the brain of a man--whatever that meant. But later, after years of studying, Simone would write a book that challenged the role of women in society, sending show waves around the world."--Back cover.

As a child, Antoine dreamed of flying. His dream was realized when he became a pilot, first serving France during World War I, then working as an international mail courier. As he wrote letters to his family describing the foreign countries he visited, he soon discovered that writing contained its own sense of adventure. His stories showed a childlike fascination with the world, culminating with The Little Prince, one of the best-selling books ever...