pickIn the Absence of Men, by Philippe Besson (2007, transl. 2025)
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Premise: In 1916 Paris, a queer teenager experiences love for the first time in very different relationships with a middle-aged writer and a soldier on leave from the War.
Review: Once again, Philippe Besson has demonstrated his knack for exceptional, short, melancholic, queer fiction. Cont.
pickEach book in this series is better than the last,I can't wait to finish all.Read No.3 in Rougon-Macquart,so nuanced and intelligent,and so continually relevant.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7578825197
#TLT #ThreeListThursday
Thank you for the tag @dabbe 😊 I‘ve picked for my three, some Zola titles I‘ve not yet read. I will nominate all three for next year‘s #HashtagBrigade selections. 🤞 I know that Zola super fan @sisilia will support this! 😂
so-soI‘ve rated it a so-so but that‘s probably more a reflection of how long it took me to listen to it (such a short audio too!) as it has actually lingered in my mind. It‘s a classic for a reason and can see how other authors likely took inspiration from its plot/characters. It was slightly repetitive and the characters had no redeeming features at all but I‘m glad to have read it - just wouldn‘t make my favourites list.
Today‘s thrift store finds ! A reissue series from the 1990s . I have several, always great to add to the set ! $1.50 both .Love these covers
pickNow @Leoslittlebooklife & I are 1/2 through the 20 vol Rougon-Macquart series. This was a marked departure in tone from the previous books. A previous title does it more justice- Restless House. Like in The Assommoir, an apartment building features heavily in the story but this time it‘s a petit bourgeois building vs the squalor of a tenement. While madcapped, lusty and frenetic, the last 4th of the book hammers home the hypocrisy beautifully.
Bookish Pair: Besson‘s previous book translated into English was Lie with Me (2017, transl. 2019) (edited) 5d