Best Book Only Read in L2

[Josquin]

I must say, the best books I read in any L2 were English books. I hope, as my native language is German, they nevertheless count for the purpose of this thread:

English - Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights, Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited, William Shakespeare: Macbeth
French - Albert Camus: L'étranger, Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Italian - Never read a book in Italian, sadly
Swedish - Selma Lagerlöf: Gösta Berlings saga
Russian - Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Игрок, Anton Chekhov: Дама с собачкой
Icelandic - Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða (one of the Íslendingasögur)
Irish - Eoghan Ó Tuairisc: Dé Luain (still to be read, but I know it will be interesting as hell once my Irish is good enough)

[DaveBee]

A graded reader about the Citroen 2CV

This is one of the geekiest things I've heard for a while, you must really love that car I guess

Guilty. It's probably the only car I'd have a chance of fixing if it broke down, but it's a super story too!

[Gatsby]

For French, if you like "policiers", I really like Jean Failler. All the ones I've read (the Mary Lester series) are set in Bretagne and really capture the ambiance of the region. He's a master of description and a very elegant user of French.

[tarvos]

But ever since I became a parent, I do better with finishing books that, like Déchronologue, start with fire and destruction and an interesting narrator on page 1, than I do with books that start slowly. Maybe someday.

I do have to admit that Fred Vargas is a whole lot fun, though.

Based on emk's recommendations written probably years ago, I looked for both of these books on my recent trip to Québec. I only found La Horde, unfortunately. I also got the next "Mistborn" volume, though, so I've got enough to keep me busy for now.

I am very happy to announce that the US Kindle store now has Le Déchronologue and several recent Fred Vargas novels, all in "French edition"! I'm currently reading Temps glaciaires, which started a bit slow but which is shaping up to have all those charmingly odd Vargas characters that always amuse me so much.

It's not the full Amazon.fr catalog, as far as I can tell, but it's definitely bigger than it used to be. Prices are typically about $11/novel, which is in the same general ballpark as paperback retail in France.

So US French students, if you're looking for any recent books recommended in this thread, try a search on Amazon.com and you might find them!

Temps Glaciaires is a lot of fun, I've read that one as well.

[IronMike]

Wow. Thought I'd already commented on this thread.

Esperanto - Mikaelo Bronŝtejn: Mi Stelojn Jungis al Revado
Russian - Boris Akunin: Левиафан