The Woman Destroyed
by Simone de Beauvoir | 
Joy of Man's Desiring
by Jean Giono | 
She Came to Stay
by Simone de Beauvoir |
The Woman of the Pharisees
by Francois Mauriac | 
Miracle of the Rose
by Jean Genet | 
The Horseman on the Roof
by Jean Giono |
Death on the Installment Plan
by Louis-Ferdinand Celine | 
The Song of the World
by Jean Giono |
Funeral Rites
by Jean Genet | 
The Counterfeiters
by Andre Gide | 
Lanzarote
by Michel Houellebecq | 
The Vatican Cellars
by Andre Gide | 
A Coin in Nine Hands
by Marguerite Yourcenar |
I'm Gone
by Jean Echenoz | 
The Possibility of an Island
by Michel Houellebecq |
The Blood of Others
by Simone de Beauvoir |
Difficult Women
by Roxane Gay | 
The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart
by Alice Walker |
Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen
by Marilyn Chin | 
Blueprints for Building Better Girls
by Elissa Schappell |
This is a collection of semi-autobiographical tales written when the author was only 30, before World War II. Each tale concerns a young woman struggling with the effects of a Catholic upbringing, and with the stifling social demands of the French bourgeoisie.