Happy People Read and Drink Coffee

Written by Agnes Martin-Lugand

Narrated by Mia Barron

Diane seems to have the perfect life. She is a wife, a mother, and the owner of Happy People Read and Drink Coffee, a cozy literary cafe in Paris. But when she suddenly loses her beloved husband and daughter in a tragic car accident, the world as she knows it instantly vanishes. Trapped and haunted by her memories, Diane retreats from friends and family, unable and unwilling to move forward. But one year later, Diane shocks her loved ones and makes the surprising decision to move to a small town on the Irish coast, finally determined to heal and rebuild her life alone-until she meets Edward, the attractive yet taciturn Irish photographer who lives next door. At first abrasive and unwelcoming, Edward initially resents Diane's intrusion into his life of solitude . . . until he can no longer keep her at arm's length, and they fall into a surprising and tumultuous romance. But will it last when Diane leaves Ireland, and Edward, for the home she once ran away from in Paris? At once heartbreaking and uplifting, Diane's story is deeply felt, reminding us that love remembered is love enduring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781501911835

Agnes Martin-Lugand

After six years as a clinical psychologist, Agnes Martin-Lugand now devotes herself to literature full-time. She is also the author of Happiness Slips Through My Fingers (Entre mes mains le bonheur se faufile) and the sequel to Happy People Read and Drink Coffee, Don't Worry, Life Is Easy (Le vie est facile, ne t'inquiète pas). Happy People Read and Drink Coffee has sold more than 300,000 copies in France and has been sold in more than 20 territories. Sandra Smith is a critically acclaimed translator of French literature. She has previously worked on Suite française and subsequent novels by Irène Némirovsky, as well as a new translation of The Outsider by Albert Camus. She is a Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, where she continues to teach French Literature, Translation and Language.

Reviews for Happy People Read and Drink Coffee

[Jana Jana · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well , I find the book inspiring, a thug life doesn't last 4ever. Keep being happy,drink coffee ,read or listen to books and talk about everything to everybody who is willing to listen to ?

[bardbooks · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Reads like Barbara Cartland, but with ciggies.

[leah152 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Well, I don't really know where to start with this book so I spose I should say I DID NOT enjoy it. At all. I didn't even finish it.Diane decides to move to Ireland to heal a year after a car accident takes the life of her husband & daughter. It starts off well enough but soon dissolves after Diane moves to Ireland. The story is so formulaic it's as if the writer was going through a checklist whilst writing a story. Perfect family, tick. Flamboyant gay best friend, tick. Family tragedy, tick, small town on the coast, tick. Something in translation must have got lost too because the sentence structure was really staccato & a bit strange. The thing that really got me though (apart from the chain smoking mentioned on every second page) was Diane was nasty, a real nasty pasty & so was her 'antagonistic intended' Edward (who was such an over the top a-hole it's not funny). I didn't read the whole book so I don't know Edward's excuse for being the way he is but personally I think both of them belong together. Maybe it's a French thing but...... nuh......

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was a random pick from my local library shelf on a visit in which my preferred books were all out on loan. "International Best Seller" the cover proclaimed. I guess Barbara Cartland was an International Best Seller too, and indeed that comparison is very appropriate. There's not much to commend this novel as far as I am concerned, except that there was something that kept me reading to the end - in the same way as it's hard to look away from a serious car accident.

[st5croixsue · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a translation of a French bestseller about a young woman, who owns a bookstore, and loses her husband and young daughter in a tragic car accident. This is her long, long road to re-entry into life involving a move to Ireland. Light read, with an American reader.

[suedarc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not too many stars for this one. The author seems to have worked diligently in the first half of the book to portray a woman in grief. The beginning of this book shows talent on the part of the writer to depict unvarnished emotional upheaval. However, the remainder of the book feels like someone else wrote it. I felt embarrassed for the writer as I cringed as passages that showed all the hackneyed creativeness of a Harlequin romance. I'm left to wonder if the author was forced by the publisher to compromise her writing level in order to improve sales.

[nbmars · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Diane’s husband and child died in a car accident a year earlier, and Diane is still an emotional wreck, hardly able to function. She decides to leave France and go to Ireland for a change of scene, and rents a cottage by the sea. Her new next door neighbor Edward is irrationally rude in a frankly unconvincing way, but it is obvious from the minute the two growl at each other, that they will end up together. Or almost. Complications with Edward introduce a new character, or perhaps more accurately, a new caricature, and in addition, Diane rightly is aware she is not yet emotionally ready for anything new.But there is an undeniable attraction between them. The conclusion is a bit unexpected, but mainly because I did not realize there was a sequel.Evaluation: To me, neither the main characters nor their dialogue seemed all that consistent and believable, with the dialogue often approaching the oddly hysterical. *But* - this is not only a book in translation, but a book that takes place in a very different culture than my own. It is possible that in French, and to the French, these criticisms would seem misguided. So although it may very well be a function of my own failings, I was not taken with the writing in this book, nor the characterizations.Note: The Weinstein Company has also acquired film rights to the book.

[susan.macura · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of Diane, who lost her husband and child in a tragic accident, and finds it almost impossible to move forward with her life. Her anchor, friend Felix, tried his best to get her to do so and come back to work at their bookstore/coffee shop. However, Diane finally comes up with a plan – she moves to a remote town on the Irish Coast. Her new neighbor, Edward, becomes the bane of her existence there, but soon sparks fly. While the storyline in this novel contains some potentially tragic moments, the writing leaves much to be desired. I felt like I was reading a high school book report because there were no real emotions depicted by the characters. The only redeeming quality of the book was that it was so short I did not feel like I wasted much of my time reading it.

[maggie1961-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received this book free from net galley in exchange for an honest review. I devoured this little book in one sitting on a lazy Sunday sunny afternoon on the deck swing. It's not a long book but to me it packed a wallop.Diane's life as she knew it, had been destroyed. She's been sheltered by everyone around her; first from her parents, then her husband and best friend Felix. She co owns a literary cafe in Paris with Felix and her life with her husband and daughter Clara seems just about perfect. And then the unthinkable happens. Clara and her husband Colin are both killed and she's left alone in her grief, not knowing the first thing about taking care of herself or anything else and she spends her days unwashed, underfed and unable to function. This is where we meet Diane, while she is still a mess, and on a mission to take her life back, she uproots to a tiny town in Ireland on the sea coast that she picked by closing her eyes and pointing. Diane's emotions are so raw, my heart broke numerous times while reading, she was so destroyed. But as she settled in this little town, where no one knew her, she finds her way back to the life of the living. And while I did feel such sadness and emotion reading this book, her sassy witty comebacks were hilarious and gave me insight as to who Diane used to be. Felix is an absolute prince. So many friends would have given up on Diane. He had endless patience with her, it made me so glad that she had someone always in her corner. As for Edward, he was truly not the kind of person I would seek out, but sometimes we judge too fast. Edward has his own demons he was working through and I think the two of them may not have been able to see beyond their life of just existing without the other. I loved travelling with Diane throughout her journey; I found myself wanting to rush to the beauty of this little town in Ireland by the sea. Solid 4 1/2 for me. Thanks to net galley and the publishes for allowing me to read and review this book.

[susan0316 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Diane has a happy life. She lives in Paris with her husband and 5 year old daughter and owns a bookstore called Happy People Read and Drink Coffee. As the novel begins, she quickly goes from a happy person to one who is consumed with grief after her husband and daughter are killed in a car accident. For over a year, she becomes a recluse - she doesn't leave her house and only sees her best friend Felix. She finally realizes that to heal, she needs to move out of the house that she shared with her family so she moved to a cottage in a small town in Ireland. Here she can either heal or become more withdrawn from the rest of the world.Parts of this book were very sad as Diane goes through the grieving process. At times though, I just wanted to shake her and tell her to snap out of it. There are several supporting characters who make the story more interesting. In the author notes at the end of the book, we are told that there will be a sequel to this book. It will be good to Find out if Diane is able to overcome her sadness.(Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.)

[pamelabarrett · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This interesting short novel is a translation from French. It is about a widow named Diane whose husband and little girl died in a car accident. She is grieving and can’t move on with her life. She owns a bookstore-café (thus the title) in Paris and its falling apart, even though her best friend Felix has been keeping the business open. Felix is a good friend, but is more concerned about partying with his boyfriends than running a business. Diane’s parents want her to snap out of her depression and come home to live with them, and that makes her angry. Fueled by anger, she decides to get away from everyone and all the memories, so she packs up and moves to a small coastal town in Ireland.Alone in a cottage by the ocean, and still grieving, she tries to distance herself from the friendly people she interacts with in town. Her landlord reaches out to her, but so far the only interaction that helps is with a rambunctious dog named Postman Pat, who belongs to her only neighbor, Edward. When she finally meets Edward she realizes he’s in a bad place mentally and is also angry at the world; neither one likes their privacy encroached on, letting the other one know whenever they cross paths. As the months go by anger and tolerance turn to interest and attraction and they start to let their walls down enough to get closer. A good title for this book would be Love Hurts, because there is a bunch of pain inside these two and just a small window to let it out. The author leaves the door open for a sequel and actually she could have made the book longer. 4 stars