Harvest
by Jean Giono | 
The Woman of the Pharisees
by Francois Mauriac | 
The Horseman on the Roof
by Jean Giono | 
Lanzarote
by Michel Houellebecq | 
Miracle of the Rose
by Jean Genet |
Death on the Installment Plan
by Louis-Ferdinand Celine | 
The Song of the World
by Jean Giono | 
The Counterfeiters
by Andre Gide |
I'm Gone
by Jean Echenoz |
Funeral Rites
by Jean Genet | 
The Shackle
by Colette |
She Came to Stay
by Simone de Beauvoir | 
The Possibility of an Island
by Michel Houellebecq | 
Whatever
by Michel Houellebecq | 
When Things of the Spirit Come First
by Simone de Beauvoir | 
The Vatican Cellars
by Andre Gide | 
The Elementary Particles
by Michel Houellebecq | 
The Notebook
by Agota Kristof | 
Nohow On
by Samuel Beckett | 
So Long a Letter
by Mariama Ba |
"Peasant civilization possesses as a gift human qualities which philosophical civilizations spend centuries first defining, then desiring, and finally losing." '??Jean Giono A true forebear of magical realism, French author Jean Giono created men and women rooted in the folklore of provincial France. In this beautiful new edition of the original Que Ma Joie Demeure'??literally, That My Joy Remain'??he tells the tale of a farmer couple in Haute Provence who find that the spark has somehow gone missing from their lives. One day, a stranger arrives who helps them discover how to rekindle their connection. The stranger tells them, "Youth is neither strength, nor a supple body, nor even youth as you conceive of it. Rather, youth is the passion for the impractical, the useless." The couple, with this guidance from the stranger, include friends and neighbors on their journey back to individual and collective happiness. They plant fields of flowers, a meadow of grain just for the birds, and they set their horses free. With a poet'??s grace and imagination, Giono weaves a grand story of the earth and of passion, of men and women, animals and weather, of the magic we now call the "laws of nature."