Art and poetry
France > Basics > Books > Art and poetry

Brassaï The Secret Paris of the Thirties (Thames & Hudson, UK, o/p). Extraordinary photos of the capital's nightlife in the 1930s – brothels, music halls, street-cleaners, transvestites and the underworld – each one a work of art and a familiar world (now long since gone) to Brassaï and his mate, Henry Miller, who accompanied him on his nocturnal expeditions.

David J. Brown Bridges Across Time (Mitchell Beazley, UK, o/p). A very beautiful book about both the technical and aesthetic aspects of bridge-building; not exclusively about France, but includes many French bridges from the Roman Pont du Gard to the Pont d'Avignon, Eiffel's constructions and the state-of-the-art Pont de Normandie across the Seine estuary.

André Chastel French Art (Flammarion, France). Authoritative, three-volume study by one of France's leading art historians. Discusses individual works of art – from architecture to tapestry, as well as painting – in some detail in an attempt to locate the Frenchness of French art. With glossy photographs and serious-minded but readable text.

Kenneth J. Comant Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 800–1200 (Yale UP, US). Good European study with a focus on Cluny and the Santiago pilgrim route.

Norma Evenson Paris: A Century of Change, 1878–1978 (Yale UP, US). A large, illustrated volume that makes the development of urban planning and the fabric of Paris an enthralling subject – mainly because the author's ultimate concern is always with people, not panoramas.

Edward Lucie-Smith A Concise History of French Painting (Thames & Hudson, US, o/p). If you're after an art reference book, this will do as well as any, though there are of course hundreds of books on particular French art movements.

John Richardson The Life of Picasso: Vol 1 1881–1906 (Pimlico/Random House) and Vol 2 1907–17 (Cape/Random House). No twentieth-century artist has ever been subjected to as much scrutiny as Picasso receives in Richardson's exhaustive and brilliantly illustrated biography. The author has taken many years to complete the first two volumes, and there's a risk he'll never reach the end, but the mould-breaking years have now been covered. Volumes 3 and 4 are in the pipeline.

Stephen Romer (editor) 20th-Century French Poetry (Faber and Faber, UK). A collection of around 150 French poems spanning the whole of the century. Although there's no French text, many of the translations are works of art in themselves, consummately rendered by the likes of Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot and Paul Auster. An equally enjoyable read for the novice and those already familiar with modern French poetry.

Vivian Russell Monet's Garden (Frances Lincoln/Stewart Tabori & Chang). Sumptuous colour photographs by the author, old photographs of the artist and reproductions of his paintings. Superb opening chapter on Monet as "poet of nature" and a detailed description of the garden's evolution, seasonal cycle and its current maintenance which will delight serious gardeners.

Jean-Jacques Sempé The World According To Sempé (Harvill UK & US). The cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé has long been known in France for his lovingly drawn cartoons and gently satirical take on the passions and follies of ordinary people. This collection translated into English brings together a selection of his best work from across his career.

Gertrude Stein The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas (Penguin/Vintage). The goings-on at Stein's famous salon in Paris. The most accessible of her works, written from the point of view of Stein's long-time lover, gives an amusing account of the Paris art and literary scene of the 1910s and 1920s.