Hunting and Gathering

Aug 10, 2025 5:30 AM

Author:Anna Gavalda

Camille is doing her best to disappear. She barely eats, works at night as a cleaner and lives in a tiny attic room. Downstairs in a beautiful, ornate apartment, lives Philibert Marquet de la Durbellière, a shy, erudite, upper-class man with an unlikely flatmate in the shape of the foul-mouthed but talented chef, Franck. One freezing evening Philibert overcomes his excruciating reitcence to rescue Camille, unconscious, from her garret and bring her into his home.

As she recovers Camille learns more about Philibert; about Franck and his guilt for his beloved but fragile grandmother Paulette, who is all he has left in the world; and about herself. And slowly, this curious quartet of misfits all discover the importance of food, friendship and love.

Reviews

Enjoyable, well-paced and engaging

—— Lucille Houston , Times Literary Supplement

Like Amélie, Hunting and Gathering stops at nothing to make the reader feel good. Reading it reminded me of tucking into one of those beautifully constructed little cakes that you see in the windows of elegant French patisseries

—— Sunday Telegraph

A charming, romantic - and very French - novel

—— Rev'd Amber Pearson , Daily Mail

An elegant, ironic tale.. this will be a classic

—— Cosmopolitan

Gavalda's ability to reinvent the will-they-won't-they love story makes this a refreshing five-star read with real bite

—— Eve

Strange and beautiful

—— The Times

Robert Chandler's tenderly attentive rendering of The Railway perfectly captures the dreamy, circling music of Hamid Ismailov's prose

—— Chandrahas Choudhury , Daily Telegraph

Jean Plaidy conveys the texture of various patches of the past with such rich complexity

—— Guardian

Anna Maxted tells a tale of sibling rivalry with wit and emotion

—— InStyle

Warm, poignant and very funny

—— Marian Keyes

Hugely funny. Maxted writes beautifully

—— Daily Express

This modern day mythical fantasy is Anne Rice on an epic scale, a hugely imagined world. A chiller thriller from cold of Russia, this one's been selling like hot cakes around the world

—— Sunday Sport

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