Vol de Nuit

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is best known in this country for The Little Prince, the odd, sad children's book he wrote during World War II. He was a fascinating person and a wonderful writer, and in my opinion his adult books are well worth discovering. 

His 1931 novel Night Flight vividly describes the experience of piloting an unpressurized airplane through unpredictable weather and over unknown terrain, with few instruments. The novel focuses upon the emotions of Rivière, an Aéropostale manager, when one of his pilots fails to return. 

Saint-Exupéry wrote from experience. Born into an impoverished family of French nobility in 1900, Saint-Exupéry came of age after World War I. He went to work for Aéropostale, an aviation company that contracted to deliver mail using the dangerous new technology of flight. A pioneer of early aviation, he survived numerous mishaps, including a near-fatal 1935 crash in the Libyan desert. 

During World War II he joined the French Free Forces as a pilot, even though he was much older than the other fliers and was unfamiliar with the more technologically-advanced aircraft of the 1940s. Saint-Exupéry's plane disappeared over the Mediterranean in July of 1944; the wreckage was only discovered in 2000. 

As Saint-Exupery's life was even more fascinating than his books, I also recommend the excellent biography, Saint-Exupéry, by Stacy Schiff.