July 2026 List of the Month: Favorite French Fiction

Yesterday, July 14th, was Fête Nationale, France's national day of celebration. It is the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, in 1789, and is known in the English-speaking world as Bastille Day. In honor of the occasion, our July List of the Month is dedicated to our Favorite French Fiction.

Each member may add ten titles, and is encouraged to add notes explaining their choices. Downvoting is only permitted on titles that do not fit the theme, and are not fiction and/or not French (as in, written and published in France).

For a complete list of topics covered so far in our project, please see the section for Lists of the Month on the Zeitgeist page

We would welcome suggestions for future lists. Please add them here, and we will keep them in mind, going forward.

Well, thanks to my catalog on LT, I was able to come up with 11 titles in a blink! Then it was just a matter of counting one out.

I wonder if The Song of Roland counts as French Fiction?

>3 al.vick: I think Rabelais pretty clearly makes the cut, but the fictional intentions of the Roland poet(s) are certainly subject to doubt.

>3 al.vick: I'd call it French Fiction, but I find it hard to identify with a hero who is so dang tough that the only way he can die is to blow out his own brains -- with a horn. :-p

Not a favorite, I was just wondering how people felt about that one.