This month, we’re reading the latest in French literature, with a pair of novels that channel old philosophical traditions into new perspectives on the country today. The Monuments of Paris: A Novel Violaine Huisman (Penguin Press, 240 pp., $28, April 2026) The book cover for Monuments of Paris Denis Huisman, the larger-than-life character at the heart of The Monuments of Paris , is drawn from the real-life academic of the same name—a personality, according to his 2021 obituary in Le Monde , “