Welcome to Litsy!

Literally, “The people of Auberoque“, Auberoque being an imaginary village in #Dordogne in 1866, possibly a disguised Montignac-Lascaux (pic of its castle from wikimedia). A lot of politicking, meanness & stupidity. And two perfect MCs 😂

Horribly behind with my reviews, so here I go. I read this in my holidays. It was a nice and fast read, though not my favourite in this series. The storyline seemed a bit easy.

Another book set in #Dordogne (and Charente) : a graphic work about a still owner who travels from farm to farm to turn his customers' fruit into brandy. There weren't many of them left in 1999-2000 which is when the book is set, but there are even fewer now, both because life has changed and because hardly anybody is allowed a tax exemption on their first liters of alcohol, as it cannot be passed down the generations anymore.

Oh look, a book where “it“/“this“ is used for a woman, described as if she was livestock for sale. I'll read on to see if that is due to the character's voice, or the writer's, but I am not impressed.

#Dordogne

Another book for my #Dordogne challenge: 12th-century troubadour Giraut de Bornehl's cantos, in the original medieval #Occitan, with a word-by-word translation into modern French and comments. Giraut/Guiraut/Guirault de Bornelh/Borneil is mentioned by Dante as one of the best troubadours. Interesting and intellectually stimulating, but slow-going.

A novel by Georges de Peyrebrune, a half-forgotten 19th-century female author with a male pseudonym. Free on wikisource. I read it because of its pro-working-class, proto-feminist leanings and because it is set in #Dordogne, which is the French département I'll be exploring in books this year. It is a page-turner and I really felt for the main character, a strong but dim girl raised in an orphanage without love or the skills to face the world.

Should I spend my summer in Cornwall, Copenhagen, California, or the French Countryside? I am feeling excited about #14books14weeks2023 and getting some traction on #serieslove23 at the same time. It‘s going to be a good good Summer!

I get that after 13 books you have to try something new in a series. So this book was ok because I know and like the characters and this got me over the fact that actually… nothing happened.

Music in all its forms permeates this book.Bruno has organized a music festival & hopes to revitalize the career of an aging rock star. In the midst of this preparation, a Russian oligarch & his multinational conglomerate infiltrates the area under different guises. A sudden death might possibly be linked to the Russians.Of course there is Bergerac wine paired with mouth watering Perigord farm fresh meals enchanting me as I read.

Waiting for next in Inspector Gamache series from Louise Penny so thought I‘d take up where I left off in Bruno Courreges series. Superficial similarities between the two…male policemen who enjoy food, native French speakers, take place in small rural towns (one in France and one in Canada). That‘s where the similarities end. I prefer Louise Penny‘s writing, which gives me glimpses into the minds of the recurring characters and is more lyrical.