How to read France ?

They say reading is travel. Here are a few books to start the journey.

People often say that reading is a form of travel and it’s more than just a convenient metaphor. I sometimes think books move us more deeply than most real journeys. They allow us to discover a place, a time or a sensibility with an intensity that lived experience rarely matches. “Soon we are captives of reading, chained by the ease it offers us to know, to slip effortlessly into extraordinary destinies, to feel powerful sensations with the mind, to embark on prodigious and consequence-free adventures, to act without acting (...), to add an infinity of emotions, fictional experiences, and observations that are not our own to what we are and what we might become.” wrote Paul Valery.

I'm a heavy reader, I read every day, and books simply matter to me. This new column stems from the belief that they deserve a place in How to get lost in France, because in the end, they feed the journey as much as the road itself. So the idea is simply to create a space to recommend books the way we’d recommend a road: with subjectivity and enthusiasm.

To launch this series, I turned to my friend Timothée Bongrain, bookseller in Saint-Lunaire, northern Brittany. He runs La Librairie Curieuse, a place as lively and generous as he is. Timothée has a rare gift for placing the right book in the right hands at just the right moment. Here are his reading recommendations

What book should someone read to begin their journey through France—even before setting foot in the country?