In 2004 I was living in South Korea. There was, of course, a paucity of English language books (save for John Grishams and books about helping your children grow up to be rich). One bookshop, Kyobo, had a lot of student editions of classic novels that were on sale: Dracula, Tristram Shandy, Candide, Le rouge et le noir and, notably, Au bonheur des dames. Over time, out of a kind of listlessness of a bibliophile, I bought up one of each of these sale items and at some point I started reading Au bonheur des dames without knowing anything about Zola or his cycle of novels. I was gripped by it from the first chapter. I think this is one of Zola's strengths as a novelist: he writes in detail about complex subjects, but his novels are always easy to read and quick to engage. This experience of mine also points to the fact that any of the Rougon-Macquart can be read as a "standalone", and this makes reading the whole cycle a less daunting task. Having read Au bonheur des dames and later returned to England, I started collecting reading copies of the other novels in the cycle.
