I've been planning on reading Antoine de Saint Exupéry's
Wind, Sand, Stars when I finish
Candide. Some of you may be interested.
It's available on Kindle Unlimited.
Saint Exupéry was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. He won several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.
Spoiler:
Best known for his classic children's book The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also an accomplished novelist and memoirist. For a dozen-plus years preceding the outbreak of World War II, he was a commercial aviator, flying for the French courier company Aéropostale. He was stationed both in South America (flying the spine of the Andes through Chile and Argentina) and in French West Africa (navigating between Toulouse and such African cities as Dakar, Marrakech, Casablanca, and Cairo, and secluded military outposts in the Sahara). Sadly, in 1944 he disappeared without a trace while flying a war-related reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean.
Fans of The Little Prince will gain insight into that strange little book, by reading this strange little book. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Wind, Sand and Stars is the Ur-consciousness of The Little Prince, and its essence can be found in Wind: the little desert foxes, the plane crashes, the calm acceptance of an impending Saharan death, and finally, the thirst-induced hallucinations, during which Saint-Exupéry likely conjured his children's story.
National Geograpic also listed it as one of the 100 best adventure stories:
3. Wind, Sand & Stars. By Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1940)
With beautiful prose, Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes his adventureous flights over the Pyrenees, Andes and Sahara. Probably the best book ever written about flying