march: 11, 12 & 13

with a spring break trip to france in the works, i planned my books this month to compliment the trip!

the paris wife, by paula mclain (i didn't love circling the sun, so i was slightly skeptical of this book, which has the same premise (take a real woman and create historical fiction around her life), but this book worked so much better for me than circling the sun did.  this book tells the story of hemingway's first wife, hadley, and the five years they spent living in paris together before getting divorced and moving back to north america.  if you are a hemingway fan - or a paris fan! - this is definitely worth a read.)

the nightingale, by kristin hannah (this book was recommended to me by becky a few years ago, and i finally got around to reading it.  an aspect of WWII that i really didn't understand until very recently is the perspective of people who lived in occupied france.  FASCINATING.  this book, though fiction, helped me understand that time in france very well - the nuances of how horrible it was.  again - so cool to read this while in paris, and i may or may not have cried on the plane ride home while finishing it up.)

a moveable feast, by ernest hemingway (so i had hadley's (somewhat fictionalized) version of things from the paris wife, and a friend lent me this book, hemingway's memoir of the very same time period: those five years in paris.  i loved this book, and would so recommend that people read the two books together like i did.  i hadn't read any hemingway since college and was reminded of how much i like his writing style.  it was interesting to see his (actual) perspective on the fictionalized events of the paris wife (hadley really did lose the manuscripts of all his early work by leaving it in a train station!).  i also loved the idea of 60 year old, nearing the end of his life hemingway reflecting back on his life when he was in his 20s.  it was a quick read!)