a friend of mine was talking about how she used to be perfectly fluent in French but hasn’t used the language for six years, and well yeah, ok, now you can get books and series and whatnot anywhere but… what to get?
She’s interested in material that will be using current French and which has been produced in French. I asked her if there’s any specific genres she’d like to hear about and she said “so long as there is a plot and dialogue it’s fine!”
Suggestions? (And yes, I’m going to be paging those people that I inmediately identify as being French)
I’m afraid I’m gonna be of little help, since most of what I read these days is either American/British lit. or history textbooks :o.
That said I can still heartily recommend Daniel Pennac’s oeuvre, notably his Malaussène cycle : Au Bonheur des Ogres ; La Fée Carabine ; La Petite Marchande de Prose and Monsieur Malaussène. I wasn’t as fond of the last two in the cycle (Des Chrétiens et des Maures and Aux Fruits de la Passion) but the writing style is still fresh. They’re rather unique and whimsy books, lying somewhere between optimistic urban fantasy and mystery novels.
I’m also very fond of François Cavanna’s autobiography and regularly re-read the first two tomes (Les Ritals and Les Russkoffs). Both deal with his youth and teenage years in 30s and 40s Paris, then his experiences as a reluctant worker in a prison camp in Nazi Germany and are written in a very colloquial, oral style. For reference, Cavanna was one of the guys who founded Charlie Hebdo, back when it was subversive and good :p.
It tends to be decoration magazines, not a lot of dialogue!