With 511 published novels, the 2020 literary season is once again very rich and everyone will be able to find what they are looking for. A little lost in the face of this multitude of novelties? Let yourself be seduced by our favorite novels. Good reading !
Aerostats by Amélie Nothomb
Ange, a 19-year-old philosophy student, leads a fairly ordinary life, quite lonely if we except her roommate Donate, a bit manic. After posting a classified ad, she is hired by a disturbing (and out of touch!) Family man to teach Pie, his dyslexic 16-year-old son, to read and "cure" him of his illness. The young woman will then introduce the teenager to literature, giving him a taste for reading and awakening many emotions in him.
A novel in which the main character, Angel, has some common traits with the author, also ostracized in college and very lonely by her own admission. In Aerostats, it is also a question of initiation into literature and all that it can bring, here it is an activity that will make Pie grow and lead him to open up to debate with his teacher on great works like The red and the black, The metamorphosis or The illiad, while making the parallel with his own life. A novel sometimes funny, sometimes cruel, to discover.
Aerostats Amélie Nothomb
Editions Albin Michel
180 pages, € 17.90
Available on amazon.fr
The end of the oceans by Maja Lunde
2017. The Norwegian Signe sails on her sailboat towards the south of France to defend the fjord of her childhood, threatened with ending up in small ice cubes sold to wealthy emirs. Sensitive to the ecological cause since her childhood, she is ready to do anything not to let this glacier, so dear to her heart, melt away, even if it means facing the man she loved so much in her youth and whom she left because their ideals were far removed.
2041. In the midst of the water war, David and his daughter Lou find themselves on the roads after a terrible incedie, like thousands of climate refugees. Father and daughter look for the rest of the family but find themselves stranded at the border of the Pyrenees. One day, a few kilometers from the camp where they are parked, they discover an abandoned sailboat in the middle of a desert field.
A strong novel which shows us, in a fictitious way, the cause and effect relationship with the overexploitation of water in barely twenty years. When, at the time of Signe, water abounds and man does not hesitate to shape the environment to derive economic profitability from it; to that of David and Lou, it has become so rare that she is rationed to take a simple shower. We are touched by the battle of Signe, who tries everything she can defend what she believes in, just like that of David, who tries to survive in a hostile world and knows how to make this "experience" of the camp of refugees quite playful for her child. And, above all, we can't help but wonder and wonder if this fictitious story could not become a reality …
The end of the oceans by Maja Lunde
Pocket Editions
368 pages, € 7.60
Release September 3, 2020
Available on amazon.fr
The confidante by Renee Knight
Christine Butcher is a discreet and dedicated secretary. Qualities that earned him to be spotted by Mina Appleton, one of the managers of the chain of stores of the same name, and to become his private secretary. A place that allows her to know many secrets, until she discovers one too big for her to let pass …
How far can loyalty at work go? This is the question Christine will have to face after 15 years of good and loyal service to Mina, a job that cost her husband and daughter, both tired of going after work. We let ourselves be caught in this infernal spiral where Christine sinks until, pushed to the limit, she commits the irreparable.
The confidante by Renee Knight
River Editions
400 pages, € 20.50
Available on amazon.fr
Those that remain by Samuelle Barbier
Among the Morlay sisters, there is Clara, the eldest, the wise girl, who does everything right. Then Constance, the youngest, a discreet young woman who we almost forget that she exists. And finally Lucy, the youngest, who lives at 100 miles an hour and takes a bite of life for fear of being forgotten. But when Constance decides to throw herself off a bridge, the family balance is upset and everything is called into question.
If the novel begins with a tragic event, the suicide of Constance, it is not for all that dark and sad. Even if Clara and Lucy's grief is present throughout the novel, Samuelle Barbier also shows us that, behind the drama, there can also be a glimmer of hope. The shock of this death will indeed upset more than one life, those of the sisters but also of their childhood friend Antoine, who has always been in love with Clara, or even Marielle, the helpless witness of Constance's gesture. A touching novel full of sensitivity.
Those that remain by Samuelle Barbier
Hugo & Cie Publishing
320 pages, € 16.95
Release September 3, 2020
Available on amazon.fr
Hero Seeds – Collective
The young Jorge lives in Ecuador where, every day, he plants kapok tree seeds in an attempt to fight the deforestation of the Amazon by an American logging company. With each tree cut down for the exploitation of green gold, Jorge plants a seed until, one day, the terrible news arrives: Jorge and his father are evicted from their house so that the company can continue its work. ..
This first chapter in Jorge's story (signed Matthias Tripard, winner of the 2019 writing competition for 15-20 year-olds for UNICEF) marks the start of a wonderful journey written by 12 recognized authors (Baptiste Beaulieu, Virgine Grimaldi, Laure Manel, Julien Sandrel, Aurélie Valogne, Sophie Tal Men …), divided into three groups. If the young feather sets the tone for this story, each group then imagined Jorge's future, thus offering us several possible stories: an adult Jorge who returns to his homeland for a pilgrimage, a version where Jorge and his father are taken on the road to exile following their expulsion, another where the young Jorge goes to live a strange adventure because of the Rio Napo river. Three stories full of poetry for a committed book: part of the profits of Hero Seeds is in fact donated to UNICEF (€ 1.50 for the purchase of a book).
Hero Seeds – Collective for the benefit of unicef
Editions The Pocket Book
144 pages, 5 €
Available on amazon.fr
The mother-in-law by Sally Hepworth
Renowned lawyer, Diana is very dedicated to her cause, the plight of refugees, but seems cold and distant with her own family. A situation from which her daughter-in-law Lucy suffers. Yet over the years, the two women grow closer, especially when Diana tells Lucy she has cancer. Until the day she dies, apparently of suicide. Except that the autopsy reveals that Diana, who had recently changed her will, did not suffer from cancer. So what happened? Is it really a suicide or a murder?
When the image of the perfect family is shattered, behind the scenes it is not always very nice to see. In the course of the chapters of this psychological suspense, which alternate between past and present, a completely different face of this extended family emerges than what we initially imagine. Lies, jealousy, infidelity, lust … when the masks fall, the end is all the more terrible for those who remain.
The mother-in-law by Sally Hepworth
L'Archipel Publishing
384 pages, 21 €
Available on amazon.fr
The dance of time by Anne Tyler
All her life, Willa Drake has let others dictate her path. Orphaned at 11, married 10 years later and widowed at only 41, she has never really taken her fate in hand. Until this morning when a phone call made by mistake finally gave him the opportunity, at 61, to get started. Called by a neighbor of her ex-daughter-in-law who announces to her that her granddaughter Cheryl needs her (when they are actually not blood related), Willa jumps on the first plane to become a big -mother.
It's never too late to take charge of your life. This is what Willa shows us when she chooses, at the age of 61, not to follow the plain path open to her. She could have not gone to help young Cheryl who is not really her family after all. But no, for once, she preferred to jump into the unknown. And here she is leading her little world on her crazy adventure, despite the reprobations of some. A tender novel to discover.
The dance of time by Anne Tyler
Editions 10/18
336 pages, € 8.10
Available on amazon.fr
Esther's Letters by Cécile Pivot
In memory of her father, Esther, a young bookseller from Lille, decides to set up a writing workshop. A workshop that will bring together five unique "students", all marked by the trials of life: Jeanne, an old lady who suffers from loneliness (even if she does not want to recognize it), Nicolas and Juliette, a young couple confronted with depression postpartum following the birth of their little girl, Jean, a businessman too busy with his work to have a life, and Samuel, a lost and grieving teenager. Through their epitolar exchanges, they will reveal themselves, get to know each other, forge links and come out transformed by this extraordinary experience.
A beautiful novel very human and full of tenderness. We like its original form since almost the entire book is made of letters, a means of communication that can seem obsolete in the age of emails and SMS. And yet, with these writings, each one delivers with modesty and sincerity, small slices of intimate life which make the characters so endearing. Letters that are also a way to evoke many topics such as bereavement, postpartum and motherhood, loneliness and the fear of aging that can speak to everyone. A nice discovery.
Esther's Letters by Cécile Pivot
Editions Calmann Lévy
320 pages, € 19.50
Available on amazon.fr
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