By the end of the nineteenth century, Paris was widely acknowledged as the cultural capital of the world, the home of avant-garde music and art, symbolist literature and bohemian culture. Edinburgh, by contrast, may still be thought of as a rather staid city of lawyers and Presbyterian ministers, academics and doctors. While its great days as a centre for the European Enlightenment may have been behind it, however, late Victorian Edinburgh was becoming the location for a new set of cultural institutions, with its own avant-garde, that corresponded with a renewed Scottish national consciousness. While Morningside was never going to be Montparnasse, the period known as the Belle Epoque was a time in both French and Scottish society when there were stirrings of non-conformity, which often clashed with a still powerful establishment. And in this respect, French bourgeois society could be as resistant to change as the suburbs of Edinburgh. With travel and communication becoming ever easier, a growing number of international contacts developed that allowed such new and radical cultural ideas to flourish. In a series of linked essays, based on research into contemporary archives, documents and publications in both countries, as well as on new developments in cultural research, this book explores an unexpected dimension of Scottish history, while also revealing the Scottish contribution to French history. In a broader sense, and particularly as regards gender, it considers what is meant by 'modern' or 'radical' in this period, without imposing any single model. In so doing, it seeks not to treat Paris-Edinburgh links in isolation, or to exaggerate them, but to use them to provide a fresh perspective on the internationalism of the Belle Epoque.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Paris was widely acknowledged as the cultural capital of the world, the home of avant-garde music and art, symbolist literature and bohemian culture. Edinburgh, by contrast, may still be thought of as a rather staid city of lawyers and Presbyterian ministers, academics and doctors. While its great days as a centre for the European Enlightenment may have been behind it, however, late Victorian Edinburgh was becoming the location for a new set of cultural institutions, with its own avant-garde, that corresponded with a renewed Scottish national consciousness. While Morningside was never going to be Montparnasse, the period known as the Belle Epoque was a time in both French and Scottish society when there were stirrings of non-conformity, which often clashed with a still powerful establishment. And in this respect, French bourgeois society could be as resistant to change as the suburbs of Edinburgh. With travel and communication becoming ever easier, a growing number of international contacts developed that allowed such new and radical cultural ideas to flourish. In a series of linked essays, based on research into contemporary archives, documents and publications in both countries, as well as on new developments in cultural research, this book explores an unexpected dimension of Scottish history, while also revealing the Scottish contribution to French history. In a broader sense, and particularly as regards gender, it considers what is meant by 'modern' or 'radical' in this period, without imposing any single model. In so doing, it seeks not to treat Paris-Edinburgh links in isolation, or to exaggerate them, but to use them to provide a fresh perspective on the internationalism of the Belle Epoque.

The study of French culture has long ceased to be purely centred on literature. Undergraduate French courses now embrace all forms of cultural production and consumption, and students need to have a broad knowledge of everything from day-time TV and the latest detective novels to debates about national identity and immigration policies.This stimulating text is an introduction to the full range of contemporary French culture. Written by a group of leading academics both within and outside France, each chapter focuses on a topic from the French cultural scene today. Starting with an overview of resources for further information (both in print and online), the text discusses the varied forms of French cultural expression and looks critically at what 'Frenchness' itself means. The book also explores examples of cultural production ranging from sport, media and literature to theatre, cinema, festivals and music. An essential resource for students and scholars alike, this text provides detailed material and analysis, as well as a launch-pad for further study.

"France Between the Wars" challenges a prevailing assumption that women had little influence or power in France during the interwar period. Sian Reynolds shows how women in fact had both autonomy and authority within the political arena through their activities in social work, peace movements and strikes, and in other areas less directly linked with conventional politics. Reynolds brings together two kinds of history: the political history of France between the wars as it appears in general textbooks, and the work carried out in women's history covering the same period. In doing so she creates a history in which gender contributes in new ways to historical analysis. The book is not, however, concerned exclusively with critical hariography. It is also the result of the author's and others' recent empirical and archival research. As such, it is a book which will appeal to both those studying French history and women's history.

"France Between the Wars" challenges a prevailing assumption that women had little influence or power in France during the interwar period. Sian Reynolds shows how women in fact had both autonomy and authority within the political arena through their activities in social work, peace movements and strikes, and in other areas less directly linked with conventional politics. Reynolds brings together two kinds of history: the political history of France between the wars as it appears in general textbooks, and the work carried out in women's history covering the same period. In doing so she creates a history in which gender contributes in new ways to historical analysis. The book is not, however, concerned exclusively with critical hariography. It is also the result of the author's and others' recent empirical and archival research. As such, it is a book which will appeal to both those studying French history and women's history.

The city-states of fifteenth-century Italy exerted unprecedented cultural influence on Europe and the Mediterranean and acted as a bulwark against the imperial and bellicose designs of the empires that surrounded them. Acclaimed French historian, Fernand Braudel, brings to life the two extraordinary centuries that span the Renaissance, Mannerism, and Baroque and grippingly portrays the complex interaction between art, science, politics and commerce during Italy's extraordinary cultural flowering. Considered one of the great modern historians, Fernand Braudel was a leader of the Annales School. His many books include The Mediterranean, and A History of Civilizations.

Shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger HOW DO YOU SOLVE A MURDER WITHOUT A BODY? Keeping watch under the windows of the Paris flat belonging to a politician's nephew, ex-special investigator Louis Kehlweiler catches sight of something odd on the pavement. A tiny piece of bone. Human bone, in fact. When Kehlweiler takes his find to the nearest police station, he faces ridicule. Obsessed by the fragment, he follows the trail to the tiny Breton fishing village of Port-Nicolas - in search of a dog. But when he recruits 'evangelists' Marc and Mathias to help, they find themselves facing even bigger game. A THREE EVANGELISTS NOVEL

It's as if he's being mocked from beyond the grave...When John Nichols arrives to identify the body of an old friend, he is instantly caught up in the wreckage of Alan Mustgrave's life. This is the side of Paris the tourists don't see, where everyone has a past but very few count on a future. But what can he expect from a man who bled to death in his own S&M show? Now there's a maverick police lieutenant on the prowl who thinks that Mustgrave was murdered. As the horrific extent of police abuse is revealed, the race is on to find the link between a slew of apparent suicides - and the key to it is buried deep in Nichols' past.

** Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month ** The exhilarating new Inspector Adamsberg novel from France's multi-million-copy bestselling crime fiction star **A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020** 'Adamsberg is one of my favourite detectives... I so enjoyed This Poison Will Remain' ANN CLEEVES After three elderly men are bitten by spiders, everyone assumes that their deaths are tragic accidents. But at police headquarters in Paris, Inspector Adamsberg begins to suspect that the case is far more complex than first appears. It isn't long before Adamsberg is investigating a series of rumours and allegations that take him to the south of France. Decades ago, at La Misericorde orphanage, shocking events took place involving the same species of spider: the recluse. For Adamsberg, these haunting crimes hold the key to proving that the three men were targeted by an ingenious serial killer. His team, however, is not convinced. He must put his reputation on the line to trace the murderer before the death toll rises... _______________________ PRAISE FOR THIS POISON WILL REMAIN: 'Absorbing... Full of twists and spiced with Vargas's characteristic wit and style' PETER ROBINSON 'Vargas is an addictive writer whose surreal touches create a curiously solid world' INDEPENDENT 'Vargas's books are...cunning, corkscrew murder mysteries' A.J. FINN

Marriage and Revolution is a double biography of Jean-Marie Roland (1734-1793) and Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, later Madame Roland (1754-1793), leading figures in the French Revolution. J.-M. Roland was minister of the Interior for a total of eight months during 1792. The couple were close to Brissot and the Girondins, and both died during the Terror. Mme Roland became famous for her posthumous prison memoirs and is the subject of many biographies, but her husband, despite being a key figure in administration of France, seldom out of the limelight during his time in office, is often marginalized in histories of the Revolution. Sian Reynolds examines the Roland marriage from its beginnings in an ancien regime mesalliance, opposed by both families, through its close cooperation in the 1780s, to its final phase as a political partnership during the Revolution. Both Roland's actions as minister and Mme Roland's role as a woman close to power were praised and blamed at the time, and the controversies have persisted. Based on manuscript sources including many unpublished letters, Marriage and Revolution sets out to examine an unusually companionate marriage over the long term: its intimacy, parenthood, everyday life in the provinces, friendships, academic cooperation, political enthusiasms and quarrels, and finally its dramatic ending during the Revolution.

*Featured in The Times top ten crime novels of the decade* THE NEW INSPECTOR ADAMSBERG NOVEL Shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger 2017 A woman is found dead in her bath. The murder has been disguised as a suicide and a strange symbol is discovered at the scene. Then the symbol is observed near a second victim, who ten years earlier had also taken part in a doomed expedition to Iceland. How are these deaths, and rumours of an Icelandic demon, linked to a secretive local society? And what does the mysterious sign mean? Commissaire Adamsberg is about to find out.

'Enlightenment' and 'Emancipation' as separate issues have received much critical attention, but the complicated interaction of these two great shaping forces of modernity has never been scrutinized in-depth. The Enlightenment has been represented in radically opposing ways: on the one hand, as the throwing off of the chains of superstition, custom, and usurped authority; on the other hand, in the Romantic period, but also more recently, as what Michel Foucault termed 'the great confinement, ' in which 'mind-forged manacles' imprison the free and irrational spirit. The debate about the 'Enlightenment project' remains a topical one, which can still arouse fierce passions. This collection of essays by distinguished scholars from various disciplines addresses the central question: 'Was Enlightenment a force for emancipation?' Their responses, working from within, and frequently across the disciplinary lines of history, political science, economics, music, literature, aesthetics, art history, and film, reveal unsuspected connections and divergences even between well-known figures and texts. In their turn, the essays suggest the need for further inquiry in areas that turn out to be very far from closed. The volume considers major writings in unusual juxtaposition; highlights new figures of importance; and demonstrates familiar texts to embody strange implications

'The most addictive of writers' Observer 'High up in Montmartre, there was a festive atmosphere, people were crowding round the little tables where rose wine was being served ... Yet a hundred metres further on, the little alleyways were deserted, and the killer might find it easy to pounce' Detective Chief Inspector Maigret is known for his infallible instinct, for getting at the truth no matter how complex the case, but when someone starts killing women on the streets of Montmartre, he finds himself confounded. In the sweltering Paris summer heat, with the city in a state of siege, Maigret hatches a plan to lure the murderer out ... 'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories' Guardian 'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independent

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves 'He hadn't seen her arrive. She had stopped on the pavement a few steps away from him and was peering into the courtyard of the Police Judiciaire, where the small staff cars were parked. She ventured as far as the entrance, looked the officer up and down, then turned round and walked away towards the Pont-Neuf' When an old lady tells Maigret someone has been moving things in her apartment, she is dismissed as a fantasist - until a schocking event proves otherwise. 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

'You'll get used to things, you'll see. But you have to watch very carefully what you say and what you do.' Adil Bey is an outsider. Newly arrived as Turkish consul at a run-down Soviet port on the Black Sea, he receives only suspicion and hostility from the locals. His one intimacy is a growing, wary relationship with his Russian secretary Sonia, who he watches silently in her room opposite his apartment. But this is Stalin's world before the war, and nothing is as it seems. Georges Simenon's most starkly political work, The People Opposite is a tour de force of slow-burn tension. 'Irresistible... read him at your peril, avoid him at your loss' Sunday Times

The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women is a fully revised and extended edition of a highly regarded reference work that illuminates the lives of Scottish women in history. It includes more than 180 additional entries on women who died before 2018, forty new photographs, and an extended thematic index. With fascinating lives on every page, the concise entries illustrate the lives of Scottish women from the distant past to our own times, as well as the worldwide Scottish diaspora. Written by experts, the book provides a striking narrative of how women's actions and influence have always helped to shape Scotland's identity.

Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is not like other policemen. His methods appear unorthodox in the extreme: he doesn't search for clues; he ignores obvious suspects and arrests people with iron-clad alibis; he appears permanently distracted.
The Chalk Circle Man is the first book featuring Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, one of the most engaging characters in contemporary detective fiction.
When strange, blue chalk circles start appearing overnight on the pavements of Paris, the press take up the story with amusement and psychiatrists trot out their theories. Adamsberg is alone in thinking this is not a game and far from amusing. He insists on being kept informed of new circles and the increasingly bizarre objects which they contain: empty beer cans, four trombones, a pigeon's foot, four cigarette lighters, a badge proclaiming "I Love Elvis," a hat, a doll's head. Adamsberg senses the cruelty that lies behind these seemingly random occurrences. Soon a circle with decidedly less banal contents is discovered: the body of a woman with her throat savagely cut. Adamsberg knows that other murders will follow.

"From the Hardcover edition."

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves 'Maigret would have found it difficult to formulate an opinion of him. Intelligent, yes, certainly, and highly so, as far as one could tell from what lay beneath some of his utterances. Yet alongside that, there was a naive, rather childish side to him.' Maigret is savouring a beautiful spring morning in Paris when an aspiring film-maker draws his attention to a much less inspiring scene, one where ever-changing loyalties can have tragic consequences. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. 'His artistry is supreme' John Banville 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

The city of Simenon's youth comes to life in this new translation of this disturbing novel set in Liege, book ten in the new Penguin Maigret series. In the darkness, the main room is as vast as a cathedral. A great empty space. Some warmth is still seeps from the radiators. Delfosse strikes a match. They stop a moment to catch their breath, and work out how far they have still to go. And suddenly the match falls to the ground, as Delfosse gives a sharp cry and rushes back towards the washroom door. In the dark, he loses his way, returns and bumps into Chabot. Maigret observes from a distance as two boys are accused of killing a rich foreigner in Liege. Their loyalty, which binds them together through their adventures, is put to the test, and seemingly irrelevant social differences threaten their friendship and their freedom. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret at the "Gai-Moulin". 'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian 'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independent

France's bestselling and award-winning crime writer Fred Vargas joins Vintage Canada.
The Three Evangelists is an enormously entertaining departure from Vargas's Commissaire Adamsberg series. Sophia Simeonidis, a Greek opera singer, wakes up one morning to discover that a tree has appeared overnight in the garden of her Paris house. As her husband doesn't give a damn, she asks her new neighbours to dig around the tree to find out if something has been buried. Her neighbours are eccentric: Vandoosler, an ex-cop fired from the police for having helped a murderer to escape, and sharing the house are three impecunious historians: Mathias, Marc and Lucien - the three evangelists, as Vandoosler calls them. They accept the job because they are desperate for money and rather curious. When they find nothing and Sophia's dead body turns up weeks later, they decide to investigate.

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray Inspector Maigret is followed home one evening by a man who reveals his intention to kill his wife and her lover. Maigret intervenes and speaks to the man daily but when the calls suddenly stop Maigret finds a murder on his hands. 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories' Guardian 'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independent

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves 'Just take a look,' Duclos said in an undertone, pointing to the scene all round them, the picture-book town, with everything in its place, like ornaments on the mantlepiece of a careful housewife . . . 'Everyone here earns his living. Everyone's more or less content. And above all, everyone keeps his instincts under control, because that's the rule here, and a necessity if people want to live in society.' When a French professor visiting the quiet, Dutch coastal town of Delfzjil is accused of murder, Maigret is sent to investigate. The community seem happy to blame an unknown outsider, but there are people much closer to home who seem to know much more than they're letting on: Beetje, the dissatisfied daughter of a local farmer, Amy van Elst, sister-in-law of the deceased and a notorious local crook. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret in Holland. 'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

One morning a librarian finds a reader who has been locked in overnight. She begins to talk to him, a one-way conversation full of sharp insight and quiet outrage. As she rails against snobbish senior colleagues, an ungrateful and ignorant public, the strictures of the Dewey Decimal System and the sinister expansionist conspiracies of the books themselves, two things shine through: her unrequited passion for a researcher named Martin, and an ardent and absolute love for the arts. A delightful divertissement for the discerning bookworm...

The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women is a fully revised and extended edition of a highly regarded reference work that illuminates the lives of Scottish women in history. It includes more than 180 additional entries on women who died before 2018, forty new photographs, and an extended thematic index. With fascinating lives on every page, the concise entries illustrate the lives of Scottish women from the distant past to our own times, as well as the worldwide Scottish diaspora. Written by experts, the book provides a striking narrative of how women's actions and influence have always helped to shape Scotland's identity.

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 'Beautiful and deep ... a sumptuous treat for any book lover' The Independent 'There is so much to discover in these stories - both history and food for short story lovers everywhere' Irish Times A major new celebration of the French short story The short story has a rich tradition in French literature. This feast of an anthology celebrates its most famous practitioners, as well as newly translated writers ready for rediscovery. Here are decadent tales, 'bloody tales', fairy tales, detective stories and war stories. They are stories about the self and the other, husbands, wives and lovers, country and city, rich and poor. The first volume spans four hundred years, taking the reader from the sixteenth century to the 'golden age' of the fin de siecle. Its pages are populated by lovers, phantoms, cardinals, labourers, enchanted statues, gentleman burglars, retired bureaucrats, panthers and parrots, in a cacophony of styles and voices. From the affairs of Madame de Lafayette to the polemic realism of Victor Hugo, the supernatural mystery of Guy de Maupassant to the dark sensuality of Rachilde, this is the place to start for lovers of French literature, new and old. Edited and with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness, academic, writer and translator.