For France, I read The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer but my mom really, really, REALLY wanted me to read Gustave Flaubert’s classic Madame Bovary.

Here’s the thing about my mom: the woman recommends STELLAR authors. Over the years, she has introduced me to Kerouac, Hemingway, Stegnar, Steinback, and Mahfouz–just to name a few. So when she recommended Madame Bovary, I requested the audiobook from my library immediately. Skipping Madame Bovary was never an option.

I did have a few reservations. Could my brain follow along with a nineteenth-century classic in audio format? While I listen to tons of audiobooks, most of them were written during the past 50 years, with language that’s a bit more casual and modern.

But I worried for nothing. I ended up listening to the version narrated by Ronald Pickup, from Gerard Hopkins’ translation, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so, that methinks a new side quest may be brewing: supplementing my Read Around the World journey with audiobook classics. I’ve never read anything by Victor Hugo (the horror, the horror), and that’s an omission I’m ready to fix. But for now, as I write this post, I’m deep into The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann–translated by John E. Woods and narrated by David Rintoul–as a bonus pick for Germany.

As for Madame Bovary? She was delightfully scandalous. Maybe not by today’s standards (and certainly not Avenida Brasil’s), but still—a deliciously dramatic trip to nineteenth-century provincial France. The fainting couches were probably working overtime.