As the Christmas season quickly approaches, it is already time for many to make purchases that will be placed under the Christmas tree. To help you in your choices, here is a small selection of books created by Tourangelles and Tourangeaux:
Tours: From Balzac to the present day
After a first volume in the form of comic fiction, released in 2023, which surveyed the history of Tours from the Gallo-Roman era until the Revolution, the journalist Guillaume Fischer released this fall a 2e volume which extends this history of the Touraine city to the present day. This time he takes us from Balzac to today.
If your loved ones are keen on history, comics, or even love Tours and Touraine, this is the gift that should be placed under the tree. “Tours – Volume 2, From Balzac to the present day”, released by Petit à Petit, takes up the codes of the first volume by immersing the reader in the contemporary history of Tours, through 9 chapters such as the arrival of the railway in 1845, the First World War with the arrival of American aviators, the Congress of Tours, the discovery of the vaccine against Hepatitis B by Professor Maupas and his team…
Still in the form of a docu-comic, the book is available in plates embellished with historical explanatory pages written by the history teacher at the Descartes high school, Cédric Delaunay.
And good news, the first volume is still available if your loved ones don't have it yet. 2 gifts in 1 in short.
Tours, from Balzac to the present day. Little by Little Editions. Price: €18.90.
100 years of sport in Touraine
Sports fans will be served with this book. Released by Editions Sutton as part of the Ici Région collection, this 192-page book coordinated by Antoine Burbaud, editorial director of Editions Sutton retraces the great moments of sport in Touraine.
Photos, interviews,… everything is there to make you relive the key moments of sport in the region, at the price of €16.90. QR Codes have even been added to direct us to videos in addition to the content of the book. For example, we can relive the 400 meter freestyle world record broken by Laure Manaudou in 2006 in the Piscine Gilbert Bozon pool (in the Sanitas district).
Far from a classic encyclopedia organized in chronological order, 100 years of sport in Touraine offers its readers a journey through time through different themes. For example, you can enjoy a section dedicated to major sporting events in Touraine; such as the various passages of the Tour de France in Tours or the two years (1988 and 1989) when the Grandmont stadium hosted the French athletics championships.
100 years of sport in Touraine. Editions Sutton. Prix : 16.90€
Victoria, a hair-raising novel
This book necessarily takes a unique place in our selection, since the author is none other than our colleague Olivier Collet whom you are used to reading here through his articles. This time, Olivier changes register and immerses us in Victorian history, through a work published by Eyrolles, as part of a collection “Pop History Novels” which offers playful biographies of great historical figures. After Louis Pasteur, Cleopatra or Vercingétorix, here is Queen Victoria who reigned over the United Kingdom for the vast majority of the 19th century.
While her palace seems to be under construction for eternity, the young sovereign discovers the horrors of reign: the happiness of being acclaimed on the day of her coronation but also the pressure of this French journalist who produces articles full of sarcasm. It must be said that the cases keep coming: the suspicious death of a lady-in-waiting who was wrongly believed to be pregnant, then political bickering which turns the country upside down.
Fortunately, the romance with Prince Albert puts happiness back in the spotlight. Until Victoria got pregnant. A period that she is experiencing very badly.
Note that in the same collection, another Touraine resident, Olivier Pion, released a playful biography of Mozart within the same collection.
Victoria, a hair-raising novel. Editions Eyrolles. Price: €18.90.
Mama Mapassa “refugee journey”
Thierry Lobut, accustomed to life journeys, through his program of the same name every week on RFL 101, delivers here alongside Sarah Attali, a series of stories of refugees who despite the tears, the suffering and the trials of life, find the strength necessary to choose a new direction. A poignant book of testimonies from unknown people, invisible but with moving journeys.
Mama Mapassa “refugee journey”Editions de l’Astre Bleu. Price: €12.
