The phenomenal New York Times bestseller that "explores the upstairs-downstairs goings-on of a posh Parisian apartment building" ( Publishers Weekly).In an elegant hôtel particulier in Paris, Renée, the concierge, is all but invisible—short, plump, middle-aged, with bunions on her feet and an addiction to television soaps. Her only genuine attachment is to her cat, Leo. In short, she's everything society expects from a concierge at a bourg...

"A magnificent romance redolent of ancient wisdom and rich with melancholy, loss, and love" from the bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog ( Le Monde).Rose has just turned forty when she gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father's will. And so for the first time in her life she finds herself in Japan, where Paul, her father's assistant, is waiting to greet her.As Paul guides Ro...

A French food critic faces his mortality in an "entertaining [and] witty" novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog ( Newsday).In the heart of Paris, in the same posh building made famous in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Pierre Arthens, the greatest food critic in the world, is dying. Revered by some and reviled by many, Monsieur Arthens has been lording it over the world's most esteemed chefs ...

A "beguiling fairy tale" by the bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog ( The New York Times).The villagers had never seen anything like it: dense white curtains of snow that instantly transformed the landscape. Not in autumn, not here in Burgundy. And on the same night a baby was discovered, dark-eyed little Maria, who would transform all their lives.Hundreds of miles away in the mountains of Abruzzo, another foundling, Clara, as...

An epic fantasy of poetry, imagination, and the eternal conflict between good and evil, from the New York Times-bestselling author of The Life of Elves.Alejandro de Yepes and Jesús Rocamora, young officers in the Spanish regular army, are stationed alone at Castillo when, out of nowhere, a friendly redhead appears to them in the cellar. There is something magnetic and deeply mysterious about this Petrus. Alejandro and Jesús are bewitched, and, in t...

From the bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog comes this delightful tale that pays tribute to Japanese philosophy and our feline friends.What a mysterious, confounding thing is a writer! Yet, spend a little time with the writer's cats and one might just understand her better.Muriel Barbery, via her cats and co-conspirators, takes readers into her atelier, offering them a behind-the-scenes peek into her process and problems, joys and dis...

A “beguiling fairy tale” by the bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (The New York Times).The villagers had never seen anything like it: dense white curtains of snow that instantly transformed the landscape. Not in autumn, not here in Burgundy. And on the same night a baby was discovered, dark-eyed little Maria, who would transform all their lives. Hundreds of miles away in the mountains of Abruzzo, another foundling, Clara, astonish...

From the best-selling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog comes a family story with a difference, a novel about the decisions one makes and the destiny they determine by one of Europe's most brilliant and stylistically subtle authors.Haru, a successful Japanese art dealer, loves beauty, harmony, art, balance, intriguing women, sophisticated conversation, and elegance. Months after a brief affair in J...

An intimate, haunting novel about the invisible bonds that survive betrayal and death.Châteauvieux-sur-l’Aubrac, deep winter. The celebrated Dutch writer Thomas Helder has died at just forty-six. After the funeral, his family and closest friends gather at the remote country house where he spent his childhood summers and where, in the final days of his illness, he chose to return. Among them is Margaux Chanet, Thomas’s oldest friend: a renowned French architect who ...

An enchanting New York Times and international bestseller and award-winner about life, art, literature, philosophy, culture, class, privilege, and power, seen through the eyes of a 54-year old French concierge and a precocious but troubled 12-year-old girl.Renée Michel is the 54-year-old concierge of a luxury Paris apartment building. Her exterior (“short, ugly, and plump”) and demeanor (“poor, discreet, and insignificant”) belie her keen, questing mind and profound erudit...

From the best-selling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog comes a story about a woman's journey to discover the father she never knew and a love she never thought possible.Rose has just turned forty when she gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father’s will. And so for the first time in her life she finds herself in Japan, where Paul, her father’s assistant, is waiting to greet her.As Paul guide...

In the heart of Paris, in the posh building made famous in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, the greatest food critic in the world is dying. Revered by some and reviled by many, Monsieur Pierre Arthens has been lording it over the world’s most esteemed chefs for years. But now, during these, his final hours, his mind has turned to simpler things. He is desperately searching for that singular flavor, that sublime something once sampled, never forgotten, the Flavor par excellen...