France Bookshelf: Some of My Favorite Books About France

Chasing Matisse: A Year in France Living My Dream  James Morgan

The Discovery of France Graham Robb

France in Mind (ed. Alice Powers)

French By Heart Rebecca Ramsay

French Spirits: A House, A Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy  Jeffrey Greene

French Toast  Harriet Welty Rochefort

French Ways and Their Meaning Edith Wharton

I’ll Never Be French (no matter what I do)  Mark Greenside

Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of St. James (David Downie)

Renoir, My Father  Jean Renoir

The Road from the Past: Traveling through History in France (Ina Caro)

The Secret Life of the Seine by Mort Rosenblum

For books that take place in, or are about Paris, see my Paris Bookshelf. And for books about Franco/American cultural differences, and/or for help in understanding the French, my Demystifying the French: A Reading List may be helpful.

I’m open to suggestions for titles to add to this list, so please, shout ‘em out!

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and literature based in Silver Spring, Maryland.  She teaches literature courses in Paris, Hawaii and Cuba for Queens College, CUNY, and twice a year she offers Writing from the Heart workshops in a beautiful little village in the Champagne region of France. She also teaches culture and literature courses at Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington D.C. 

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