By Amélie Nothomb (Ni d’Eve ni d’Adam) Europa Editions, January, 2009.

Amélie’s love affair with Japan and with a young Japanese man.

By Muriel Barbery. Europa Editions, September, 2008.

By Sélim Nassib. Europa Editions, February, 2007

A highly imagined and unusual novel–or take–on the Middle East conflict, alleging that Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir might, or could, have had a Palestinian lover during her early years in Palestine.

Anna Gavalda, Chatto & Windus (UK), 2006.
Riverhead (US), 2007.

This lovely story of four down-and-out misfits in contemporary Paris is a modern fairy tale, and at 600 pages, no easy translation! But each subsequent reworking made me love the characters all the more, and now there is a film (with the original French title, Ensemble c’est tout) starring Audrey Tautou…

Sélim Nassib, Europa Editions, 2005

This is a fictional biography of the great Egyptian singer Umm Kalthum; not only is it a social history of an era and a culture, it also offers tremendous insight into Arab sensibility–and it is a moving love story.

Aliette Armel, The Toby Press, 2004.

A beautifully written historical novel interweaving the parallel stories of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, and Piero della Francesca and his wife in Renaissance Italy.

By Jean-Michel Foray and Jakov Bruk. Harry Abrams, 2003.

Catalogue, Chagall Exhibition, San Francisco MOMA (contributing), Summer, 2003.

Gérard Duruzoi, University of Chicago Press. 2002

The definitive work on the lives and careers of the most prominent surrealists–how the movement came together in the 1920s, flourished, survived the war, and gradually disbanded. Richly illustrated, obviously.

Valerian Albanov, Random House, 2000.

A great adventure story for people who don’t mind the cold…a true story of a Russian expedition in the early 1900s who are trapped in the ice and have to walk across the icefields of Spitsberg to survive…truly chilling.

JMG Le Clézio, University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

A luminous, nostalgic, semi-autobiographical novel by one of France’s greatest living authors, describing his boyhood years in colonial Nigeria.

Louise Longo, Sheridan House, 1996

A heart-rending true story of a family’s final journey together on a sailboat.

H.H. the Dalai Lama, Interviews and Speeches, North Atlantic Press, Berkeley, 1996.

This series of speeches and interviews is an excellent introduction to the teachings of Buddhism and to the historical role of the Dalai Lama.

Sheridan House, 1992

Kersauson’s record-breaking round the world solo voyage on a catamaran.