Paris in July: Three books by Antoine Laurain

Thanks to Paris in July, over the last couple of years I have been making my way through the backlist of popular French author Antoine Laurain.  Last year, I shared a review of what is still my favourite, An Astronomer in Love, as well as mini reviews of three other books. Today, I am back with another three mini reviews of the books that I have read since last years Paris in July event.

I was trying to get French Windows read for last years event, but I ran out of time. In this book, Nathalie is a photographer who is having therapy as she can no longer do her job after she accidentally photographed a murder. Her doctor, Doctor Faber, sets her the task of writing stories about the people who live in the building opposite her. Soon he is having to wonder whether she is making up the stories, or if they might be true. And if they are true, how is she finding everything out. One of the things that I notice regularly in these books is the smoking, and here Doctor Faber is a self proclaimed gifted smoker and this is central to the plot. This seems pretty French to me!

The President's Hat is probably my second favourite story from this author. One night accountant Daniel Mercier is having dinner in a Parisienne restaurant when the President comes in to dine. At the end of the night, Mercier realises that the president has left his hat behind. Daniel takes it home and realises that when he wears it he feels empowered to behave differently. However, it isn't long before Daniel loses the hat himself and other people get to feel the power of the hat!  What follows is almost caper-ish as various parties try to locate and obtain the hat. It's a lot of fun.

My most recent read was French Rhapsody which was published in 2016. This was a little deceptive as it started out as though it was going to be very nostalgic about music and about the different lives that people can lead when they start from a similar point in time. It did, however, end up being quite political, talking about right wing politicians in French politics. Structurally, it is very interesting, and the starting premise for the book is very clever. A doctor named Alain receives a letter through the post that should have been delivered 30 years previously. At the time, he was a member of a cold wave rock band and they had submitted a demo tape in the hope that they would get picked up by a record company. When they didn't get any interest, the band all went their separate ways. Now Alain is trying to contact them all again. Whilst we get perspectives from the band members, there are also additional perspectives from other characters as well. It does have some trademark Laurain elements in here from unusual meetings and unseen connections to silly humour. 

I love that whilst there are some trademarks in his writing, each of the books is very different.  

I think I still have The Portrait and Smoking Kills waiting for me on my Kindle, and then hopefully there will be an English translation of his latest book which is called La Dictee in French (The Dictator) coming soon as well.

A shout out to the translators for these books. French Windows was translated by Louise Rogers La Laurie. She also worked on the translation of The President's Hat along with Emily Boyce and Jane Aitken. These last two also translated French Rhapsody.

French Rhapsody was one of my Twenty Books of Winter and also counts for the Books in Translation Challenge

Paris in July: An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain

What a delight this book was! I have read a couple of other books by this author so I did expect to be charmed by it, but this was next level.

We first meet Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de La Galaisiere, astronomer tothe Academie Royale des Sciences, as he boards a ship bound for India. Guillaume has been ordered by no lesser person that His Majesty Louis XV "to measure, with the aid of his telescopes and astronomical instruments, the true (rather than the supposed) distance from the Earth to the sun, on the occasion of the transit of Venus across our star."

As you would expect Guillaume Le Gentil has planned his journey to the tiniest detail. Nothing will stop him from getting to exactly where he needs to be to fulfil his mission. Unfortunately, fate has other ideas and so he ends up on an adventure that he could never have imagined. He builds friendships, has experiences that bring him joy, hardship, utter despair and so much more. All of this is made more interesting by the fact that Le Gentil really existed!

This is a dual timeline story. The other timeline of this story is set in 2012 and features a real estate agent by the name of Xavier. He is a divorced father who only gets limited time with his son. One day, he is called to an apartment that he recently sold. The new owner has found a big chest in a cupboard and they want it gone. Inside the chest is an old telescope. When he sets up the telescope in his window, his attention is caught by a woman in a nearby apartment who appears to have a zebra in her house, and he can't stop thinking about her and wondering who she is.

Whilst the telescope is the obvious connection between these two stories, there is a much nicer connection which really only unveils itself right at the end in the loveliest way. There is at least one  weird aspect of the story which feels a bit out of place at the time, but the author brings it all together masterfully!

I have read several Antoine Laurain novels over the last year, and they all are somewhat quirky, including in the way that people meet, and this is no exception. One of the things that I loved about this book is it almost felt like two separate books and yet, it never felt disjointed. The Le Gentil sections are an adventure where there is peril, mishaps and more, and yet the modern part is much more a meet-cute, modern story.

One of the reasons why I found the section about the transit of Venus so interesting is that it connects to Australian history. Captain Cook was in Tahiti for the transit that occurred in 1769, and from there he continued to the east coast of the land that we now call Australia. I had therefore heard about the transit, but I loved learning more through the pages of this book!

I still have a few more of Laurain's books to read. The big question is do a binge read all of them or try to space them out a bit. I suspect I don't need to spell this out but I really, really enjoyed this book, and recommend it highly

I am sharing this review with my fellow participants in Paris in July hosted by Emma at Words and Peace Blog,  with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host and the Books in Translation challenge hosted at The Introverted Reader