August reading recommendations: books about France in English

eventually that site requires registration but the first three articles were free for me.

For those who like non-fiction and France and wine, try “Wine and War.” It’s a great history book on how the French wine industry battled against Nazis stealing wine.

Couldn’t get past the pop-ups in the article, but…I’m about 1/5th of the way through Mary McAuliffe’s Dawn of the Belle Epoque, a history of the political, social, and cultural upheavel and efforts to rebuild Paris after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. It’s very readable, more like a vibes-based, “this is what a day in the life of 1870s Paris was like” rather than a deep scholarly examination of the issues.

She’s got a second volume, Twilight of the Belle Epoque that continues the story from around 1900 into the beginning of WWI.