St.-Tropez: Books: French Riviera Recommended Reading

French Riviera Recommended Reading

SAINT-TROPEZ

“And we laughed, because it is good to laugh, and because one laughs easily in a climate where there is a real long, hot summer with soft breezes, and leisure to state with confidence: “Tomorrow, and the next day too, we’ll have days no different from this when the blue and golden moments glide by…merciful days where shadows come from a drawn curtain, a closed door, or leafy trees, and not from an overcast sky.”—Colette

NONFICTION

Break of Day, Colette, 1928 — Written in the artists’ colony of Saint-Tropez when the author was in her fifties, the mature work followed the collapse of her second marriage and reflects her desire to re-establish her independence, and repudiate romantic love, while celebrating the natural beauty of her surroundings.

Edith Wharton on the French Riviera, Philippe Collas, 2002 — A fascinating look at the Golden Age of the French Riviera between the wars during the time the American writer visited and found it both a writing paradise and socially shallow – with vintage photographs.

Queen Victoria and the Discovery of the Riviera, Michael Nelson, 2001 — A well-researched account of Queen Victoria’s love affair with the French Riviera.

Artists and their Museums on the Riviera, Barbara F. Freed, 1998 — See the region through the eyes of its most famous artists, like Paul Signac, Renoir, Matisse, Chagall, Picasso and Cocteau.

FICTION

Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan, 1955 — Seventeen-year-old Cecile pokes around in her widowed father’s affairs, with tragic results.

Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1933 — Fitzgerald’s most ambitious novel about a glamorous couple coping with his frustrated career ambitions and her mental problems against the Riviera in the 1920’s.

Epitaph for a Spy, Eric Ambler, 1952 — A terrific spy novel about a man at the end of his Riviera vacation who drops his film off at the drugstore – and finds himself arrested and under suspicion when the photos that come back aren’t his.