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  • [ September 14, 2026 ] Brothers Jackie Thomae Review Fiction
  • [ September 10, 2026 ] How to Make a Woman & Our Life in the Forest Marie Darrieussecq Review Fiction
  • [ September 2, 2026 ] Wonderland Hanna Nordenhök Review Fiction
  • [ August 28, 2026 ] Surface Olivier Norek Review Fiction
  • [ August 26, 2026 ] Reading Around the World Top 5 Books of the Month Reading Lists
  • [ August 26, 2026 ] Bridging the Gender Divide: Warwick Prize for Women in Translation Spotlight Spotlight on Publishing
  • [ August 25, 2026 ] Red River Somnath Batabyal Review Fiction
  • [ August 20, 2026 ] Maureen Freely Translator, Novelist & Advocate Interview Interviews
  • [ August 17, 2026 ] The Aquatics Osvalde Lewat Review Fiction
  • [ July 29, 2026 ] The Bureau of Unknown Fates Gaëlle Nohant Review Fiction
Homefrench society

french society

French society is very complex and multifaceted shaped by a rich history, diverse culture, and various social dynamics, and is increasingly reflected in literature and the arts.

Reading Around the World Top 5 Books of the Month BookBlast
Reading Lists

Reading Around the World Top 5 Books of the Month

August 26, 2026 Georgia de Chamberet 0
This month’s top 5 books range across history, art and human survival; moving across continents, eras and genres. From minute-by-minute reckonings with a political crisis and a chilling first-hand account of the extremes of tyranny, […]
angst Helene cixous bookblast review
Fiction

Angst Hélène Cixous Review

March 17, 2026 Guest Contributor Comments Off on Angst Hélène Cixous Review
Hélène Cixous is best known in the Anglophone world for her 1976 essay The Laugh of the Medusa (Le Rire de la Méduse) — published in English one year later — in which she laid […]
charlie coombe tina kover bookblast interview
Interviews

Charlie Coombe & Tina Kover Translator Interview

February 13, 2026 Georgia de Chamberet Comments Off on Charlie Coombe & Tina Kover Translator Interview
In this translator interview for BookBlast Diary, Charlie Coombe and Tina Kover talk language, literature, inspiration, success and more. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Charlie Coombe (CC): I have been a translator for […]
zombie proust jerome prieur bookblast review
Non Fiction

Zombie Proust Jérôme Prieur Review

December 16, 2025 Georgia de Chamberet Comments Off on Zombie Proust Jérôme Prieur Review
Marcel Proust may have died over a century ago, but his legacy endures. Readers are still captivated by the way À la recherche du Temps Perdu redefined modern literature; by how Proust shows the drama […]
Fractured France Andrew Hussey BookBlast Review
Non Fiction

Fractured France Andrew Hussey Review

September 8, 2025 Georgia de Chamberet Comments Off on Fractured France Andrew Hussey Review
Fractured France: A Journey Through a Divided Nation is Andrew Hussey’s latest exploration of French culture and history, published by Granta Books on 11 September. A patchwork of memoir, interviews, cultural references, historic context and […]
small boat vincent delecrcoix bookblast review
Fiction

Small Boat Vincent Delecroix Review

July 9, 2025 Georgia de Chamberet Comments Off on Small Boat Vincent Delecroix Review
Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix is a stark, tragic novel which confronts the moral bankruptcy and paralysis of Western humanism and liberalism. Set against the backdrop of desperate migrants attempting to cross the English Channel […]
french cooking for one michele roberts bookblast review
Non Fiction

French Cooking for One, Michèle Roberts Review

June 7, 2025 Georgia de Chamberet Comments Off on French Cooking for One, Michèle Roberts Review
Another book about French cooking, when so many are published? But this one is a little different since Michèle Roberts is the daughter of a French mother and an English father — it is essentially […]
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Book Club (Translation)

A Dictator Calls Ismail Kadare BookBlast® Book Club Podcast

January 6, 2025 Georgia de Chamberet Comments Off on A Dictator Calls Ismail Kadare BookBlast® Book Club Podcast
A Dictator Calls is based around Stalin’s alleged three-minute telephone call to Boris Pasternak in 1934. Who better than Kadare to write about it,  given how he navigated the oppressive environment of communist Albania under […]

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Two deliciously dark novels by Marie Darrieussecq Two deliciously dark novels by Marie Darrieussecq reviewed for BookBlast by @emily.unwin 
How to Make a Woman @fittzcarraldoeditions and Our Life in the Forest @transitbooks form a razor-sharp social duet dissecting womanhood, autonomy and the disturbing pressures of modern existence. 
If you love unsettling, atmospheric French fiction that lingers in the mind, The Handmaid’s Tale, or feminist dystopias, these are perfect reads.
Link in bio to read the full review
This week, BookBlast brings you a curated collecti This week, BookBlast brings you a curated collection of some of the best contemporary writing from Albania, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. These translations capture the wit, grit and complex soul of the Balkan peninsula past and present. 
Immerse yourself in The Siege by Ismail Kadare, a compelling, fictional account set in pre-Ottoman Albania against the backdrop of an impending war, Café Europa by Slavenka Drakulić, a collection of essays which traverse daily life in various Eastern European countries acclimatising to the fall of Communism, Belladonna by Daša Drndić, an intense, psychological novel that exposes the cruelty of historical artefacts and events, the timeless classic Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugrešić, which entwines ancient Eastern European mythology through interconnected stories, and finally Byron and the Beauty by Muharem Bazdulj, a historical fiction inspired by the Romantic poet’s famous journey through the Balkans. 
🔗 Click the link in bio to browse & buy our Balkans collection on Bookshop.org 
Every purchase directly supports independent bookshops & our work as a CIC
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