A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

High fantasy is normally not my thing. In general, I prefer children's fantasy, and low fantasy, to these intricately plotted other-worldly . . . worlds.  Believe me, I have the highest respect for authors who can create these amazing places with characters and settings and creatures, oh my, replete with fantastic names for all of them.  Normally, I just do not have the patience -- frankly, it's all the vocabulary.  I honestly get tired of having to keep it all straight -- I want plot and characters to wrap my brain around.  Children's fantasy has much less world-building for me to keep straight in my head.  (Does this make me a lazy reader?)

So how in the heck did I find myself hooked on A Game of Thrones????  Frankly, I blame HBO.  Yes, it is the antichrist, television, that got me completely obsessed with a a series that is currently numbering more than 4000 pages and threatens to take over my reading list for the next couple of months.  Normally, I ignore all the adult fantasy in my library, except when I'm shelving or helping a patron, and it holds no fascination for me.  But darn it if that pay cable station didn't get me hooked on an epic fantasy series.  I didn't even start watching it until July!  There was a lot of buzz about it, so I set the DVR and promptly forgot about it.  Then one night last month, when everyone else was in bed, I decided to take a look and see if it was any good.

I. HAD.  NO.  IDEA.  Let me just say, first of all, that the series premiere has one of the best cliffhangers I've EVER seen on television, and that, having finished the first book, HBO did an amazing adaptation -- they were able to translate a book of almost 700 pages into ten hours, with very few changes (other than making the characters slightly older).  If you know nothing about this series, it's kind of like a Medieval version of The Sopranos, but with a little supernatural stuff thrown in.  Or, to put it another way, Lord of the Rings, but with sex thrown in.

It's set in the mythological lands of Westeros, which is divided up into Seven Kingdoms.  The lords of the kingdoms have all sworn fealty to the King Robert Baratheon at King's Landing.  When the story starts, the King's Hand, similar to his Lord Chancellor, has died, and King Robert has come far north to Winterfell to ask his childhood best friend, Lord Eddard Stark, to step in as his new Hand.  He comes with an enormous entourage, including his despicable wife Cersei of the House of Lannister, and her two brothers: her twin, valiant knight Lord Jaime, and her younger brother Tyrion, also known as the imp.

Sean Bean as Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell

Well, things start to get very interesting -- plotting!  intrigue!!  backstabbing!  Plus there are illegitimate children, swordfights, ousted rulers, a whole race of semi-savage horse-lords, a crazy prince who claims he has dragon's blood, giant wolves -- and at the Northern border there's an enormous Wall to keep out scary stuff that may or may not be mythological.  And did I mention that in this land, seasons last for years at at time?  It's been summer for about ten years now, and Winter Is Coming.

I eagerly watched all ten episodes in less than a week -- I could have stayed up all night watching if I didn't have other things to do, like supervise children and housework (I hadn't started working at the library yet).  Then I had to decide if I was going to read the books, or wait nine months to see what happens next. . .  . riiiight.  I was on the library's wait list but it was too long, so the other day I broke down and bought it.  And you know what?  Even though I'd just watched the series (twice), the book was even better!  George R. R. Martin has done an amazing job intertwining the book's multiple plots from the viewpoints of about seven different characters -- each chapter takes one character's perspective, and the chapters are quite short.  Martin worked in television for years, so I can see how easily the book was translated into a series. (Martin was also an executive producer and wrote one the episode's scripts).  I say easy, but it couldn't have been, with thousands of extras and costumes and swords and castles and so on.

Anyhow.  I've probably been rambling, but if you have even the vaguest interest in fantasy, this series is really worth it, if the rest of them are anything like the first book.  Seriously, I haven't been this excited about a new series since I read Harry Potter -- sacrilege!  And after I finish the fifth book in the series it'll be a long wait until the next one -- just like the agony J. K. Rowling put me through.

This is so unlike most of the other books I read, but I had to blog about it.  Bloggers, what about you?  Are there any books or series you love that are totally different than your usual reads?  Do you think of them as guilty pleasures?

A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was one of the authors that got me interested in reading classics a few years ago.  I'd found a list of the Modern Library's Top 100 Novels and was shocked at how few I'd read.  However, I was pretty intimidated by Steinbeck -- The Grapes of Wrath sounded so dire.  Shortly after I made the commitment to classics, I joined an online reading group, and one of the first selections I read with the group was Travels With Charley, in which Steinbeck travels around the U.S. with his dog.  How bad could that be?

Well, it wasn't bad, it was great.  And after that I had the nerve to tackle The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and several of his other works.  I laughed and cried with Steinbeck, and someday, I hope to read his entire oeuvre.  I've read seven of his works so far, and I've liked or loved most of them.

A Russian Journal is a bit like Travels With Charley because it's a non-fiction travel memoir.  At the beginning of the Cold War, Steinbeck and his friend, Robert Capa, a respected WWII photographer, traveled around Russia for several weeks, recording his impressions.  As a famous writer, Steinbeck naturally went to receptions and speeches and events with Important People, but what he really wanted was to travel all over the country and met regular people and see what their lives were like, much like he would do in the 1960s in the United States with his dog Charley.

I found this book extremely interesting -- I've spent my whole life wanting to see other places, so I am a complete sucker for a travel memoir.  Steinbeck is a great observer of life and characters, and most people don't realize how funny he could be.  He didn't make fun of the Russian people -- he held them in the greatest respect.  Steinbeck writes really well about the humor in situations, like the nightmares of bureaucracy and the difficulties of travel.

What really struck me about this book was Steinbeck's admiration of the Russian spirit.   Steinbeck sees people who are literally living in holes in the ground, the remainder of their homes after they've been bombed out by the Germans.  It will take years to rebuild, yet the people are undaunted.  They're determined to survive.  One of my favorite parts of the book was when he describes a visit a farming community in the Ukraine, which was particularly hard-hit by the war.  Steinbeck and Capa spend an evening in a village, eating and drinking and dancing with the locals.  There are very few young men, since so many died in the fighting, so the young women dance with each other.  These young ladies work hard all day harvesting in the fields, using traditional methods since there isn't much machinery left since the war; then, they dance all night long, sleep a couple hours, and get up and go back to work in the fields.

Steinbeck found the Russian people as curious about Americans as he was about them.  He also found them to be equally concerned about nuclear war.  And more than anything, he found them warmhearted and generous.  He and Capa are constantly entertained wherever they visit.  One of the places he visited was Georgia, which sounds absolutely wonderful.  After visiting a tea plantation, they stop at many houses to visit, and at each one Steinbeck and Capa are offered food, which they couldn't bring themselves to refuse.   After they were completely stuffed, the manager of a farm asks them to stop by his home for a bite to eat, "only a token bite, as a courtesy."

We were beginning to believe that Russia's secret weapon, towards guests at least, was food. . . . It was the vision of the table that nearly killed us.  It was fourteen feet long, and it was loaded with food, and there were about twenty guests.  I think it was the only meal or dinner we ever attended where fried chicken was an hors d'oeuvre, and where each hors d'oeuvre was half a chicken. . . . [Steinbeck goes on to describe many fabulous-sounding dishes] . . . .The flavors were all new, and we wanted to taste all of them.  Capa, who prides himself on a thirty-two inch waist, and who will not let out his belt, no matter what happens, was getting a puffed look under the chin, and his eyes were slightly popped and bloodshot.  And I felt that if I could just go two or three days without eating anything, I might return to normal.

If you have any hesitation about reading Steinbeck, this is a great introduction.  His writing has a wry humor and genuine insight into the human spirit.

My thanks again to Rebecca at The Classics Circuit!  I've really enjoyed reading all the postings about Steinbeck, and look forward to more tours.

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

I have owned My Cousin Rachel for almost five years now, and I cannot imagine why I took so long to read it.  Rebecca, du Maurier's masterpiece, is one of my favorite books of all time, and it's the August selection for my classic book group that meets this weekend.  I practically know it by heart, so I grabbed My Cousin Rachel off the shelf this weekend to help get myself in the gothic mood.

I was a little worried that it wouldn't measure up to Rebecca -- honestly, I don't think many books could!  Also, I was really disappointed by Jamaica Inn, one of her more famous novels.  However, I'm pleased to report that My Cousin Rachel was quite a page turner and I couldn't wait to find out how it all turned out.

Here's the setup, in a nutshell:  young Philip Ashley is an orphan, raised by his bachelor cousin Ambrose, who is twenty years his senior.  Philip is the heir apparent to Ambrose's considerable family fortune, and is as close to him as if Ambrose had been his father.  When Philip is in his early twenties, Ambrose is forced by health issues to winter in Italy, where he meets a distant cousin, Rachel.  Though Ambrose had never been much interested in women, he and Rachel hit it off over a mutual love of gardening.  What follows changes the lives of both Ambrose and Philip forever.

Like Rebecca, this book is set on a large estate in Cornwall, and is a blend of mystery and romance.  However, this is actually a historical novel, like Jamaica Inn, though it took me awhile to realize it was set sometime in the early 1800s -- at first I thought it was set in the 20th century, like Rebecca, until Philip mentions his father died in the Napoleonic wars.  There's also no mention of train travel, and communication between Philip and Ambrose takes forever while he's in Italy.

I liked this novel -- the characters were well realized and I thought the pacing and tension were good.  My only quibble was I found Philip to be incredibly naive.  He's in his early twenties, and has led a rather sheltered life for a wealthy young man -- he knows absolutely nothing about women, and doesn't seem to have had any experience with them at all, which I find rather absurd -- he'd been to prep school and spent time at Oxford.  Even if this was almost 200 years ago, I can't imagine that there weren't any women around!  It's not as if he'd been raised on a desert island or locked in a tower, his schoolmates must have had sisters, or cousins -- not to mention all the village women.  When they come into contact with Rachel, both of these two men are so stupidly infatuated with Rachel that I wanted to smack them both.

Nevertheless, the mystery and gothic elements of the book are classic du Maurier.  I don't want to give away too much for fear of spoilers, but even though it's not as good as the brilliant Rebecca -- and honestly, what novel could be? -- but it's well worth reading if you are a du Maurier fan.  I still have The Scapegoat on the TBR shelves -- any other du Mauriers I should read?  Besides Jamaica Inn and Rebecca, I've also read Don't Look Now and many of her other short stories.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I belong to three face-to-face book groups, and I have to admit that I'm terrible about getting the books read on time -- I usually leave them to the last minute, and it's a rare month in which I finish all three books.  It does not help that two of them meet back-to-back on the same day (in the same library branch) and frequently, the other group meets the same week.  It's crazy, but I love all my groups and I'd hate to give up any of them.

Anyhow, I was really pleased with myself for finishing one of the selections so early -- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I'd been looking forward to this one all year, and copies were limited, so I was resolved to read it quickly and return it for the next book club member.  However, I couldn't have imagined I'd read it so quickly!  It's more than 500 pages but I zipped through it, could hardly put it down.  Needless to say I really enjoyed this book.  I loved Cranford and Wives and Daughters is one of my all-time favorites, so I had great hopes for it.  I was not disappointed.

Essentially, it's another story of a young woman and man who fall in love after first disliking each other, with verbal sparring and witty repartee.  However, it's much more than that.  This one is set during the Industrial Revolution, with a background of factory strikes, a dirty, gritty Northern town, and the working poor.  Young Margaret Hale was raised in a privileged background, as the companion to her wealthy cousin.  After her cousin marries, she returns to live with her parents in a small, idyllic town in the South of England, where her father is a curate.  Her mother married beneath her to the parson of a small living, where she is miserable.  Mr. Hale has a crisis of faith and leaves his position, taking a job as a tutor to wealthy industrialists in the Northern town of Milton (based on Manchester).  Here Margaret meets John Thornton, a self-made industrialist who owns a cotton mill.  Margaret is at first unimpressed by this man in trade (gasp!) who is one of his father's pupils (he was too busy pulling himself up by his bootstraps for a classical education).  They clash but of course they care for each other.

This has been described over and over as a Victorian re-working of Pride and Prejudice.  Normally, retellings and sequels and prequels of classic lit make me run the other way, but I gave it a chance.  I suppose it's a bit like P&P, but it's pretty loose.  Of course, you have the young unmarried woman and the gruff man who start out hating each other and fall in love -- it's such a trope that it hardly seems like a reworking, but maybe Jane Austen was the first one to use it.  This story has much more social commentary; apparently Dickens lifted this idea for Hard Times, causing a rift between himself and Mrs. Gaskell.  Trust me, this is by far the better novel, as Hard Times is the Dickens novel I like least.

I actually finished this a couple of weeks ago, and over the weekend I watched the BBC miniseries adaptation starring the dreamy Richard Armitage as Mr. Thornton.  It was so good both my daughters watched it with me, and one night we stayed up until almost midnight!  Am I a good mother for exposing them to quality literature or a bad mother for letting them stay up that late?

Borders Loot and My Guilty Conscience

I'm feeling very guilty but I could not help myself the other day, I took advantage of the 20% off clearance prices (plus additional 10% off with my Borders Plus membership).  This is what I brought home:

From top to bottom, in case you can't read the titles:

Aunts Aren't Gentleman by P. G. Wodehouse
Galahad at Blandings by P. G. Wodehouse
The Girl on the Boat by P. G. Wodehouse
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Authors on Why We Read Jane Austen by Susannah Carson
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David

I'm sure I could have bought these books for less online at Amazon, but there is something so wonderful about browsing.  It was really bittersweet, though, since I couldn't help feeling if I'd had more shopping sprees like this at Borders, they'd somehow have stayed in business.  My closest Borders is only about five minutes' drive away, and I frequently hung around reading without buying anything, not even in the cafe, or bought one item with my coupon so they barely made any profits.  I did shop on their website occasionally but found their online delivery slow so I hardly ever used it.  And the past few months, they've been sending me coupons that worked out to about 46% nearly every week!  How can a business expect to survive like that?  I knew it wouldn't last but I still took advantage.

I do have a Barnes & Noble membership and frequently bought from them online -- I prefer shopping at B&N.com over Amazon even though I have to pay tax, since I can return items at the store without paying return shipping -- plus, they have an actual telephone number answered by real people.  (When was the last time you spoke to someone from Amazon??  It's virtually impossible.)  And besides, Barnes & Noble has Starbucks, and the good squashy chairs!  Where can I get those chairs?

I've heard from several people who worked at Borders that it was a whole range of problems that contributed to its demise, so I know I shouldn't hold myself responsible because I didn't shop there enough.  I'm still sad to see a major book retailer go out of business.  I spent many happy hours browsing and reading -- I do think their fiction selection was much better than Barnes & Noble.  And I'm sure I'll go to the other two stores within driving distance to hunt up some more bargains.  Nearly every one of the books I bought was dusty, especially the Wodehouses, so I feel I have given these books a happy home.

I'm sure when the store is closed for good I'll probably cry.

Pot Luck (Pot Bouille) by Emile Zola

I know I just posted about Germinal a few weeks ago, but seriously, it was so great, I got on the Zola bandwagon and I'm totally obsessed with his work at the moment.  Pot Luck (also known as Pot-Bouille) is the satirical story of the bourgeios residents of a Paris apartment building, and a scathing attack on the hypocrisy of bourgeois attitudes of the time.  The story begins as Octave Mouret (from the Rougon family), who has just arrived in Paris from the provinces, comes to the apartment building on the Rue de Choiseul, where he'll be renting a room.  A friend of his family, Monsieur Campardon, lives in the building and has also lined up a job for Octave at The Ladies' Paradise, the eponymous department store of the next book in the series.  Octave meets his new neighbors through their parties and salons, and the reader is introduced to several families and their domestic staff.  

Basically, this story is about the apartment's residents and how awful they are.  The Josserand family has two daughters, and Madame Josserand is constantly scheming to get them married off, and to get her rich brother to give her money for dowries.  Madame Compardon is some kind of invalid -- she never gets dressed and just lays around reading Dickens, while her husband is carrying on affairs right under her nose.  Most of the men in the building are either hitting on the servants or off with their mistresses.  The wives are always screaming at the servants, the servants scream at each other and gossip about their employers, and the main character, Octave, is trying to seduce various women in the building.  Meanwhile, everyone pretends to be very respectable.  It's sort of like a sordid French version of Upstairs, Downstairs.

I did have a hard time with this book at first. Seriously, these characters are all pretty awful people, with minor exceptions.  At one point I was thinking about giving it up completely, but at about 100 pages, it got really interesting -- even though I didn't like any of the characters, I was fascinated.  They were so dreadful I had to find out what happened.  Unlike many 19th century writers, Zola's books are pretty fast reads, so I was easily able to finish the book in a couple of days once I really got into it.

I've read a lot of books about characters who are real train wrecks, like Madame Bovary.  None of the people in Pot Luck are quite as self-destructive as that, but this does turn out to be an interesting and sometimes hilarious story.  My one complaint about Zola is that he tends to throw a lot of characters at the reader in the beginning, which is pretty confusing.  I had put the book down for several days and when I picked it up again I was having trouble keeping them straight.  I did consider re-reading the beginning so I could make a chart or a plan of all the people that lived in the building and how they were all connected.  

Overall, this is a very entertaining story and I ended up loving it.  I couldn't help wondering if Zola based these characters on real people.  There was one passage near the end that cracked me up.  I'm pretty sure that this resident of the building, who's barely mentioned in the story, is based on Zola himself:  

Monsieur Gourd [the concierge] told how they had had a visit from the police -- yes, the police! The second-floor tenant had written such a filthy novel they were going to imprison him.  

"Horrible stuff!" he went on in a tone of disgust.  "It's full of filth about the most respectable people.  They even say our landlord's described in it -- yes, Monsieur Duveyrier himself! What a nerve, eh? It's good for them that they keep themselves to themselves; we know now what they get up to, in spite of their stand-offishness.  You see, they can afford to keep their carriage, because their filth is worth its weight in gold!"

So, now I'm all into Zola, and I've decided to read the entire Rougon-Macquart series, or as many as I can find in decent translations.  Next up:  The Ladies' Paradise.  Is anyone else a big Zola fan?  Which of his books are not to be missed?  

New job!!!

Sorry for taking so long to post, but I've had a busy week.  Today was my very first day . . . . 

AT MY NEW JOB !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it's official, I am gainfully employed in a library for the first time in almost exactly three years.  I had the bad timing to complete my library degree at the height of a recession, after moving to a city with a hiring freeze.  :-(

Not my library.  But isn't it beautiful?

But finally, after almost three years of volunteering, I've been hired at the library -- though sadly, not as a librarian.  But I'm on the city payroll, which is the important thing, and I can keep applying for promotions.  I have my foot in the door and I'll just keep trying.

I started at my new branch today and everyone seems lovely, I'm sure I'll be very happy there.

I can't tell you how nice it is to be a Real Library Employee!!!!!!!!

Incidents in the Rue Laugier by Anita Brookner

Two challenges fulfilled by one 240 page book!  For Paris in July, I had really intended to try and finish some of the books on my burgeoning TBR shelves; however, I've heard so many great things about Anita Brookner I couldn't pass up participating in International Anita Brookner Day, sponsored by Thomas of My Porch.  My discovery of this novel, set in both France and England,  seemed serendipitous.

The book begins with a prologue.  After her mother's death, a young woman finds some intriguing items that belonged to her, including a notebook and a beautiful silk kimono.  The book that follows is how she imagines her mother's life.

Maud Gonthier is the only child of bourgeois parents in Dijon, France.  Her father dies when she is a small child in the 1950s, and her mother struggles to keep them financially afloat without appearing poor. She hopes to get the attractive Maud married off early.  Maud's aunt married very well, and her mother hopes to unite her with her cousin Xavier, or one of Xavier's friends.  On a summer visit at her aunt's country house, young Maud falls head over heels in love with Tyler, a dashing and wealthy young Englishman who has the world at his feet.  Sadly, things don't turn out exactly as Maud hopes -- instead the hunky Tyler, she winds up with the solid but unexciting Edward Harrison, another young Englishman dragged to the country by Tyler.

Initially, this seems like one of those novels in which Not Much Happens.  At first I really didn't much like the story or the characters, who seemed really cold and calculated, especially Maud's mother.  I was resolved to stick with it, and the payoff was worth it.  This book is a really great character study, and it's really made me think about marriages and relationships and True Love.  And disappointment -- a lot of characters in this book are disappointed with their lot in life.

I'm beginning to understand why Thomas raves about Anita Brookner, another author to add to my burgeoning Must Read List.

A Few Vacation Photos

Other than books, my other big obsession is food.  I did go to cooking school years ago, and worked for several years as a professional pastry cook.  When I'm on vacation, if I'm not reading, I'm usually looking for something wonderful to eat.  If you have not been to Disney World, there are many, many wonderful places to eat.  And our hotel was pretty cool too.

First, the view from my balcony at the Animal Kingdom Lodge:

Could this be a zebra book discussion group?  Or are they planning a hostile takeover?

Of course the animals weren't there all day every day, but still, it's pretty awesome to sit there and have a giraffe walk by!  And much cheaper than flying to Africa with a family of four.

We lived in Tampa for three years, so I've actually spent a lot of time at Disney and don't take that many photos any more.  This time I was mostly inspired to record some of the amazing meals we ate:

Roast duck from the Yak & Yeti restaurant at Animal Kingdom

And here's some seared tuna which we ate before riding Kali River Rapids three times in a row at Animal Kingdom  -- it was right before closing and they didn't even make us get off the ride in between, we just kept on going.  And getting wetter.  I did not think to bring a change of clothes, so it was a pretty uncomfortable bus ride back to the hotel.  Oh, well, it was worth it.

Our last day at Disney we went to Hollywood Studios (aka MGM) and had lunch at The Brown Derby:

By far, the best crab cake I have ever eaten in my life.  And those three wineglass stems are from a Champagne flight.  Delicious!

My dessert, a delicious layered confection of toffee, caramelized bananas, and banana mousse.  Afterwards it was time for a nap.

More on vacation and my vacation reads later!

Germinal by Emile Zola

I am finally back from Florida and well rested -- time to start posting!  After a whirlwind tour of Disney I had several restful days visiting family and friends in Florida.  It seemed sort of incongruous for the setting, but despite the sunny weather I decided to tackle Germinal, this month's selection for my real-life classics group.  Of all the books our group chose for 2011, I think this was the book I've wanted to read most.  Amanda from The Zen Leaf just raved about it, and after reading The Belly of Paris and Therese Raquin last year, I was eager to read more Zola.

The setup:  Etienne Lantier arrives in a small mining village, homeless, starving, and looking for work.  He's a trained mechanic but is happy to take a job as a miner, despite the horrible working conditions.  Through his eyes, we get to see the life of these people, who are scraping a living out of the bowels of the earth.  The work is back breaking and dangerous, there's hardly enough food to go around, and not much else to do except drink, gossip, and procreate.  When the mining company decides to change the payment structure, resulting in less pay for more work, Etienne leads his comrades in a devastating strike during a long, bitter winter.

If this sounds bleak and depressing, it is, but at the same time it's absolutely riveting.  Imagine The Grapes of Wrath, only set in 1880s France -- and underground, where the work in not only exhausting, but you could die at any time from a cave-in, a gas leak, or an explosion.  Plus the eventual death of black lung.  (Not to downplay the plight of the California migrant workers, but picking vegetables isn't quite the same. Though I guess they might get carpal tunnel or skin cancer.  Excuse the digression).

Anyhow.  Zola is just a master at setting these scenes and drawing the reader in -- a large chunk of the book is just Etienne's first day in the mines, so through his eyes the reader learns exactly what life is like for these people.  Zola actually spent six months researching this book, spending time with coal miners and going down into the mines himself.  He's also brilliant at writing crowd scenes.  I tend to zone out and skim over extended action scenes in books, but not here -- there are some scenes of mob violence that are horrifying, yet I couldn't stop reading.

Zola also tells the story bourgeois managers and their families.  The book is blatantly pro-worker, yet he's able to interject some sympathy for some of the managers who are really doing the best they can.  Of course, some of the wives and daughters are unbelievably naive and sheltered about the whole situation,  and Zola's satire would be hilarious if it probably weren't true -- they come off rather like Marie Antoinette wondering why they just don't eat some cake since there's no bread.

This was probably a poor choice to read in sunny Florida but I'm so glad I read it and can't wait to read more Zola.   I have both Nana and The Drinking Den (L'Assommoir) on my TBR shelf and I'm also dying to read The Ladies' Paradise.  I don't know if Germinal counts towards the Paris in July readalong, since none of it actually takes place in Paris, so I guess I'll just have to read another Zola!  Any suggestions?