Our introduction to literary Bordeaux begins with the 3 most famous Bordeaux authors, the ‘3 Ms’, that is the philosophers Montaigne and Montesquieu and the novelist François Mauriac. There are statues of them all in the city. There are mini biographies and pointers to their works. Then we follow up with more books set in and around Bordeaux - historical fiction, two very different detective stories and the true account of the web of spies – French, German, British – operating in Bordeaux during World War II.

Reading Suggestions

The Essays A Selection by Michel Montaigne How to Live A Life of Montaigne in 1 Question and 20 Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell Persian Letters by Montesquieu The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac Thérèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick Bordeaux Private Eye by Rorie Smith Game of Spies by Paddy Ashdown Death in Bordeaux by Allan Massie

Link for this post Musee d'Aquitaine

City Breaks: all the history and culture you'd research for yourself if you had the time! Check our website for the blogpost accompanying this episode, to find more episodes from our Bordeaux series or to browse our back catalogue of other cities which are well worth visiting: https://www.citybreakspodcast.co.uk

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