Books

Masséna Around The World July Reads

LIBRAIRIE MASSÉNA29 July, 20263 Mins read110

Greetings from the English bookshop in Nice, Masséna Around the World. We hope everyone is having a great summer so far and surviving this heat…

Sometimes it makes us want to head to the beach with a summer read, and other times, we just want a cool room and an even cooler book…

So without further ado, here are our five best-selling books, in no particular order, of the past four, very hot, very busy, weeks!

THE CORRESPONDENT
by Virginia Evans

First up is one of those word of mouth sensations and this year’s winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The novel contains only letters and emails and tells the story of 70-something retired lawyer Sybil Van Antwerp who writes every day to friends, family, strangers she has come across one way or another, and also writers whose works she admires, including Joan Didion and Ann Patchett. The book explores some profound themes, such as finding solace in literature, building connections through correspondence, facing up to past trauma, and ultimately seeking and receiving forgiveness. It’s such a heartwarming, gut-wrenching, gentle and witty story.

GHOST STORIES: A MEMOIR
by Siri Hustvedt

Another bestseller to feature letters and written in the aftermath of the death of her husband, writer, poet and filmmaker Paul Auster. It reflects on the forty-three years they spent together, from their first encounter in 1980s New York through the highs and lows of love, family and grief. The book also contains Paul Auster’s last ever piece of writing – the first thirty-five pages of what he hoped would be a small book of letters to their grandson. Unflinching, tender and wise, this is the full-bodied story of Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster’s life together, an exploration of how grief unmoors time and how the intimacy of a shared life continues to mark the everyday.

YESTERYEAR
by Caro Claire Burke

This is the book everyone seems to be talking about at the moment and we don’t seem to be able to replenish our stocks fast enough! Yesteryear is a satirical thriller about Nathalie Heller Mills, a high-profile “tradwife” Instagram influencer who has built an online empire by portraying a flawless, tech-free farming life. One day she wakes up in what appears to be the year 1855, forced to live the life she pretended to live before, where she recognizes no-one and must survive without her team of employees and modern society. The novel is told in two streams, one from Nathalie’s life before the incident, and a second timeline in which she is trying to unravel the mystery of her situation. It’s highly addictive!

THE DEAL
by Elle Kennedy

The recent TV adaptation of our next bestseller has driven a massive wave of viewers to the source material and into our bookshop! We are of course talking about… The Deal. This is the first of five books in Kennedy’s Off Campus series, a seriously steamy hockey romance which follows Hannah Wells, a music major who agrees to fake-date hockey captain Garrett Graham so he will help her get noticed by a crush, in exchange for her tutoring him to save his GPA Their pretend relationship soon blossoms into something more…

In the romance book community, the male lead Garrett is widely considered a walking green flag (despite a few early arrogant college-boy moments) making for a refreshing change from the red flags we often find in this genre.

LAND
By Maggie O’Farrell

To conclude our roundup of the past month’s top selling books at Librairie Masséna Around the World, and to help forget the heatwave, we would like to take you to a windswept Irish peninsula in the 1880s. Set in the aftermath of the Great Famine, Land is a rich portrait of a family pulled apart whilst mapping the country. It is about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonisation and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away. It’s a story of survival, for our times and for all time. Just what the doctor ordered!

Do pop by the bookstore if you’re in the vicinity, and remember that there is a 5% discount for RIVIERA BUZZ readers!! You can stay updated on our upcoming events via our Instagram, or you can sign up to our newsletter by sending us an email at massenaaroundtheworld@gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you!