Strangers on a Train or Brief Encounter, the French Way. . .

Frank meets Anne on a Paris train station platform and helps her with her heavy bag (full of books). They get on the train, begin a conversation, get off at the same stop, have a meal, go to an author reading at a local bookstore, end up at the same hotel, have sex, and declare their love - but not of course in that order. In the Train by Christian Oster, translated by Adriana Hunter, is very funny and very French which means love and philosophy inevitably accompany each other as slightly surreal travel companions. For fictional trainspotters with or without a lot of relationship baggage.