Medlemvalerie.liotard

Living in France, and in a fairly small country town, access to English books is limited to best sellers mostly. Luckily I enjoy reading whodunits. I've got quite a few Harlen Coben thrillers. I love Agatha Christie novels. My favorite one by her is And Then There Were None. Narrative techniques and mise en abyme are the things I look for in a novel. Examples of books that impressed me in that area are Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Atonement by Ian McEwan. TC Boyle's use of humour is very interesting even when he goes for bleak topics as in When The Killing's Done. I find YA novels fascinating and I'm a big fan of The Hunger Games by Susan Collins. I'm not too keen on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga but found The Host thought-provoking. Of course, I love Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts by J.K.Rowling. One of my favourite books is Yann Martel's Life of Pi. Last year I set up project work in class called "Unputdownable Books and Film Adaptations" and students gave great presentations. We were able to think about why fantasy fiction is so popular and why it is relevant today. Going back to SF, I love Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It's so beautifully written and so powerful and a great book to study with students to make them think about why reading books matters. I am always moved by autobiographies and top of the list are The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson. I love listening to writers talking about their books and one of my favorite radio show is the BBC World Book Club. I regularly go to the theatre as well and run the school's drama club with a colleague and a professional director called Iris Trystram who works wonders with our students. I've learnt so much watching her work with students and I take notes fervently as students need to hear her advice when they have to play when she's not with them. Of course, I have much fondness for Shakespeare and poetry. One of my favourite films is Bright Star by Jane Campion that gives such intimate insight into the writing process. John Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne are amazingly beautiful. I must mention Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and also Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. I read in English more but thanks to my Australian book club friends, I read Le grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier again with great pleasure.

I am an English teacher in France. I love reading books in English.