If my library was on fire and I had to choose a book to save what would be, I think, that one. Yet nothing predestined me to love Zola and it is by chance, after reading "Therese Raquin" (which is also great too) I bought "Au Bonheur des Dames". I do not know what made me so fascinated in this novel. Besides writing, the time and the atmosphere that portrays the author, I'm really back in. This is the only book I've read it twice and I could still read with pleasure. A board, read as "Pot-Bouille" that precedes "In bonheur des dames". The hero is Octave Mouret. Another masterpiece of Zola.