The Millions: A Year in Reading: Rosecrans Baldwin

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December 12, 2007

A Year in Reading: Rosecrans Baldwin

Rosecrans Baldwin is a founding editor of The Morning News, where he writes the Letters from Paris column. His stories have elsewhere appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, and on NPR's "All Things Considered." He and his wife live in France.

I moved to France this year, and for a few months I tried to read or reread mostly French authors - Zola, Flaubert, David Sedaris, and Colette. I love Colette. Two years ago on a trip to Santa Fe I read one of her "Cheri" novels and was surprised by how much of a soap opera she packed in a very slim volume, and so I picked up The Pure and the Impure with high hopes. All were met. Sort of a series of interviews about love and sex, it's swift but persuasive.

Moving abroad, I've also been pushed (by the pickings at the neighborhood bookstore) to discover new detectives. Sweden's Hakan Nesser writes the Inspector Van Veeteren mysteries. Borkmann's Point turned out to be a plodding, enjoyable procedural, with an ending I didn't see coming, even if my wife predicted it by halfway through - but she's always doing that, while I'm the one at the movie theater flabbergasted when the hacksaw turns up in the butler's room.