Reading List
Jean-Philippe Blondel
French Novelist and English Teacher
Jean-Philippe Blondel, born in Troyes, France, in 1964, is a French novelist and high school English teacher. He has taught at the Lycée Edouard Herriot in Sainte-Savine, near Troyes, since the 1990s. His novel The 6:41 to Paris has been translated into ten languages, and New Vessel Press has published it in English along with Exposed and Café Unfiltered. His picks here, from a Shelf Awareness interview, include Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Willa Cather’s My Ántonia and Maylis de Kerangal’s The Heart.
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac · 1957 · Fiction
“On the Road by Jack Kerouac. The French cover showed beatniks hitchhiking. My father would have thrown it away.” — via Article, August 2023
The Heart
by Maylis de Kerangal · 2016 · Fiction
“The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal. I regard her as one of the best French writers of all times.” — via Article, August 2023
Bournville
by Jonathan Coe · 2023 · Fiction
“I have just finished Bournville by Jonathan Coe, because I love the way he depicts the post-Brexit United Kingdom.” — via Article, August 2023
Cloud Atlas
A Novel
by David Mitchell · Fiction
“I remember being in awe when I discovered Cloud Atlas when I was on holiday on the Atlantic coast. I just couldn't stop reading it, day and night, and his other works all proved to be original, thrilling, and beautifully written.” — via Article, August 2023
My Antonia
by Willa Cather · 1918 · Fiction
“I know My Ántonia almost by heart. I identify so much with Jim, the narrator.” — via Article, August 2023
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë · 2002 · Classics
“Emily Brontë, as I am fascinated by Wuthering Heights, which is the only book (apart from Proust) that I have ever re-read.” — via Article, August 2023
In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust · 2003 · Classics
“In Search of Lost Time. The reasons why people are afraid of it (the number of volumes, the length of the sentences) are unfounded. Nobody has ever re-created the world as he did. Entering his work is just like stepping into the most beautiful monument you have ever seen.” — via Article, August 2023
