December 06, 2023

Bordeaux Episode 10 Literary Bordeaux: an Anthology

36 minutes

Our introduction to literary Bordeaux begins with the 3 most famous Bordeaux authors, the ‘3 Ms’, that is the philosophers Montaigne and Montesquieu and the novelist François Mauriac. There are statues of them all in the city. There are mini biographies and pointers to their works. Then we follow up with more books set in and around Bordeaux - historical fiction, two very different detective stories and the true account of the web of spies – French, German, British – operating in Bordeaux during World War II.

Reading Suggestions

The Essays A Selection by Michel Montaigne

How to Live A Life of Montaigne in 1 Question and 20 Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell

Persian Letters by Montesquieu

The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac

Thérèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac

The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

Bordeaux Private Eye by Rorie Smith

Game of Spies by Paddy Ashdown

Death in Bordeaux by Allan Massie

Link for this post

Musee d'Aquitaine

City Breaks: all the history and culture you'd research for yourself if you had the time!

Check our website for the blogpost accompanying this episode, to find more episodes from our Bordeaux series or to browse our back catalogue of other cities which are well worth visiting: https://www.citybreakspodcast.co.uk

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