Candide is one of Voltaire's most important works. It is a satirical novel following Candide as he becomes disillusioned with the optimist philosophy as taught to him by his teach, Pangloss.

Diderot's allegorical novel about Louis XV.

From the catalogue: "Germaine de Staël's first major novel, Delphine, published in 1802, is a profound commentary on the status of women during a critical period of French political history. Delphine's eighteenth-century conventional form as an epistolary novel masks its unconventional questioning of accepted values and norms. From the start, the Napoleonic government understood that Delphine was more than just a tale of tragic love. Though Staël disclaimed any intention of writing a political novel, the subversive aspects of a book dedicated to "The France of Silence" were not lost on Bonaparte, who prompty exiled the author from Paris. Perhaps most unacceptable to Napoleon was Staël's assertion of the rights of the individual, particularly those of women. The novel is especially important for its presentation of the plight of women at the end of the eighteenth century. This translation of Delphine is based on the authoritative critical French edition prepared by Simone Balayé. Goldberger's introduction places the novel in the context of Staël's work and the thought of the times."

Part of Balzac's Comédie humaine series. A novel looking at 1830s Parisian society through a realist lens.

If you have access to Spotify, free audio versions can be found there.

The 1991 film version of Madame Bovary directed by Claude Chabrol

From the catalogue: "Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, "Bonjour Tristesse" is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cé cile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences.Freed from boarding school, Cé cile lives in unchecked enjoyment with her youngish, widowed father -- an affectionate rogue, dissolute and promiscuous. Having accepted the constantly changing women in his life, Cé cile pursues a sexual conquest of her own with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. Then, a new woman appears in her father's life. Feeling threatened but empowered, Cé cile sets in motion a devastating plan that claims a surprising victim.Deceptively simple in structure, "Bonjour Tristesse" is a complex and beautifully composed portrait of casual amorality and a young woman's desperate attempt to understand and control the world around her."

The original version of the Broadway musical the Phantom of the Opera.

From the catalogue: "The foremost Proust scholar of our time offers a brilliantly revised and annotated edition of the first volume of the twentieth century's most acclaimed novel One hundred years have passed since Marcel Proust published the first volume of what was to become a seven-volume masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. In the intervening century his famously compelling novel has never been out of print and has been translated into dozens of languages. English-language readers were fortunate to have an early and extraordinarily fine translation of the novel from Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff. With the passage of time, however, the need for corrections, revisions, and annotations to the Scott Montcrieff translation has become apparent.  Esteemed Proust scholar William C. Carter celebrates the publication centennial of Swann's Way with a new, more accurate and illuminating edition of the first volume of In Search of Lost Time. Carter corrects previous translating missteps to bring readers closer to Proust's intentions while also providing enlightening notes to clarify biographical, historical, and social contexts. Presented in a reader-friendly format alongside the text, these annotations will enrich and deepen the experience of Proust's novel, immersing readers in the world of an unsurpassed literary genius;"

This isn't a novel, but it is one of Simone de Beauvoir's most important works of feminism. This copy is an English translation of her work Le deuxième sexe.

This is a very popular series of romans policier (detective novels/crime novels).

From the catalogue: "In 1999, in the small provincial town of Beauval, France, twelve-year-old Antoine Courtin accidentally kills a young neighbor boy in the woods near his home. Panicked, he conceals the body and to his relief--and ongoing shame--he is never suspected of any connection to the child's disappearance. But the boy's death continues to haunt him, shaping his life in unseen ways. More than a decade later, Antoine is living in Paris, now a young doctor with a fiancée and a promising future. On a rare trip home to the town he hates and fears, Antoine thoughtlessly sleeps with a beautiful young woman from his past. She shows up pregnant at his doorstep in Paris a few months later, insisting that they marry. Meanwhile, the newly discovered body of Antoine's childhood victim means that the case has been reopened, and all of his old fears rush back. With the gravitational pull of his hometown strengthening its grip, Antoine may finally be forced to confront his past. Is he prepared to do what he must to keep his darkest secrets buried?"