Towards Beauty #
Author David FoenkinosDate March 24, 2026Rating 5/5
Coming from an American English background, I’m used to writing that is relatively speaking more utilitarian. When I first started reading French, I was surprised by just how much poetic language and flowery words are used to describe even the most mundane of things. I’m often reminded of restaurant menus in France that promise much when describing otherwise simple dishes like a soup or salad.
This book reminded me the value of this style of writing. It covers a lot of difficult, heavy topics, but I found the way in which it interwove poetic descriptions of emotions helped to capture the spirit of the themes the book expressed. Surprisingly for me, even with the use of such language, I didn’t have too much trouble reading the book, so I’m inclined to look out for Foenkinos’s other books next I can.