Paris

In Zola's 1873 tale, a prisoner who's escaped and taken refuge in Paris gets caught up in a Socialist cell -- and sees a Paris not to be found elsewhere. One of Zola's own favorites, "Paris" is a truly brilliant tale -- it shows us the city's underbelly, both figuratively and literally, for we see the enormous market (built in the 1850s) into which flowed great rivers of of food -- and from which flowed sewers of blood and putrefaction. This is a brilliant tale, and one as alive and memorable today as it was when Zola wrote it.