Paris Then and Now


Book Description

The new compact edition of this popular Then and Now title highlights the wonderful heritage of Paris and the city as it is today. This stunning collection of unforgettable photographs showcases landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysee and areas like the Latin Quarter and Montmartre.




Paris Chic


Book Description

Paris is the city of chic—and as such, its innate style shines throughout the city, even in the simplest spaces. Quaint bistros, picturesque alleyways, artists’ studios and unique characters are elevated to a modern-day genre painting when set in Paris. From skateboarders to antiquarians, this volume is a glimpse into Parisian life, as if peering over the edge of the balcony at your own pied-a-terre.




Paris Was Ours


Book Description

Thirty-two writers share their observations and revelations about the world's most seductive city. "Whether you have lived in Paris or not, this captivating collection will transport you there." —National Geographic Traveler Paris is “the world capital of memory and desire,” concludes one of the writers in this intimate and insightful collection of memoirs of the city. Living in Paris changed these writers forever. In thirty-two personal essays—more than half of which are here published for the first time—the writers describe how they were seduced by Paris and then began to see things differently. They came to write, to cook, to find love, to study, to raise children, to escape, or to live the way it’s done in French movies; they came from the United States, Canada, and England; from Iran, Iraq, and Cuba; and—a few—from other parts of France. And they stayed, not as tourists, but for a long time; some are still living there. They were outsiders who became insiders, who here share their observations and revelations. Some are well-known writers: Diane Johnson, David Sedaris, Judith Thurman, Joe Queenan, and Edmund White. Others may be lesser known but are no less passionate on the subject. Together, their reflections add up to an unusually perceptive and multifaceted portrait of a city that is entrancing, at times exasperating, but always fascinating. They remind us that Paris belongs to everyone it has touched, and to each in a different way.




Paris Changing


Book Description

Between 1888 and 1927 Eugne Atget meticulously photographed Paris and its environs, capturing in thousands of photographs the city's parks, streets, and buildings as well as its diverse inhabitants. His images preserved the vanishing architecture of the ancien rgime as Paris grew into a modern capital and established Atget as one of the twentieth century's greatest and most revered photographers. Christopher Rauschenberg spent a year in the late '90s revisiting and rephotographing many of Atget's same locations. Paris Changing features seventy-four pairs of images beautifully reproduced in duotone. By meticulously replicating the emotional as well as aesthetic qualities of Atget's images, Rauschenberg vividly captures both the changes the city has undergone and its enduring beauty. His work is both an homage to his predecessor and an artistic study of Paris in its own right. Each site is indicated on a map of the city, inviting readers to follow in the steps of Atget and Rauschenberg themselves. Essays by Clark Worswick and Alison Nordstrom give insight into Atget's life and situate Rauschenberg's work in the context of other rephotography projects. The book concludes with an epilogue by Rosamond Bernier as well as a portfolioof other images of contemporary Paris by Rauschenberg. If a trip to the city of lights is not in your immediate future, this luscious portrait of Paris then and now is definitely the next best thing.




L'Appart


Book Description

Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-Pat life in Paris, using his perplexing experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life. Includes dozens of new recipes. When David Lebovitz began the project of updating his apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with perplexing work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his Paris kitchen. In the midst of it all, he reveals the adventure that accompanies carving out a place for yourself in a foreign country—under baffling conditions—while never losing sight of the magic that inspired him to move to the City of Light many years ago, and to truly make his home there.




The Paris Correspondent


Book Description

“A stylish, expertly drawn novel about the characters who made journalism what it was, and whose disappearance is making journalism what it is now” (Kirkus). Ed Clancy and Joe Shelby are journalists with The Paris Star, an English-language paper based in Paris. Relics from a time when print news was in its heyday, when being a reporter meant watching a city crumble around you as you called in one last dispatch, the Internet age has taken them by surprise. The two friends are faced with the death of what they hold most dear—their careers, and, for Shelby, a woman he cannot bring himself to mention. The Paris Correspondent is a tribute to journalism, love, and liquor in a turbulent era. Written in riveting prose that captures the changing world of a foreign correspondent's life, Alan S. Cowell's breakout novel is not to be missed. Written from personal experience and in homage to Reynolds Packard's classic Dateline Paris, there is “also a touch of Kingsley Amis in Shelby's satiric dimensions and of Saul Bellow's Ravelstein in the book's late-in-the-day confessions” (Kirkus).




How Paris Became Paris


Book Description

Documents the century-long transformation of Paris from a medieval center to the modern city that is recognized today, revealing how the Parisian urban model was actually invented in the 1700s when period leaders tore down fortifications, created public parks and constructed streets and bridges. 25,000 first printing.




Walks Through Lost Paris


Book Description

A full-color traveler's volume outlines four walking tours through some of its most significant historical areas, offering insight into how specific regions and buildings have changed, in a resource that provides specific coverage of the work of Georges-Eugne Haussmann. Original.




Paris in the Fifties


Book Description

In July 1947, fresh out of college and long before he would win the Pulitzer Prize and become known as one of America's finest historians, Stanley Karnow boarded a freighter bound for France, planning to stay for the summer. He stayed for ten years, first as a student and later as a correspondent for Time magazine. By the time he left, Karnow knew Paris so intimately that his French colleagues dubbed him "le plus parisien des Américains" --the most Parisian American. Now, Karnow returns to the France of his youth, perceptively and wittily illuminating a time and place like none other. Karnow came to France at a time when the French were striving to return to the life they had enjoyed before the devastation of World War II. Yet even during food shortages, political upheavals, and the struggle to come to terms with a world in which France was no longer the mighty power it had been, Paris remained a city of style, passion, and romance. Paris in the Fifties transports us to Latin Quarter cafés and basement jazz clubs, to unheated apartments and glorious ballrooms. We meet such prominent political figures as Charles de Gaulle and Pierre Mendès-France, as well as Communist hacks and the demagogic tax rebel Pierre Poujade. We get to know illustrious intellectuals, among them Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and André Malraux, and visit the glittering salons where aristocrats with exquisite manners mingled with trendy novelists, poets, critics, artists, composers, playwrights, and actors. We meet Christian Dior, who taught Karnow the secrets of haute couture, and Prince Curnonsky, France's leading gourmet, who taught the young reporter to appreciate the complexities of haute cuisine. Karnow takes us to marathon murder trials in musty courtrooms, accompanies a group of tipsy wine connoisseurs on a tour of the Beaujolais vineyards, and recalls the famous automobile race at Le Mans when a catastrophic accident killed more than eighty spectators. Back in Paris, Karnow hung out with visiting celebrities like Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, and Audrey Hepburn, and in Paris in the Fifties we meet them too. A veteran reporter and historian, Karnow has written a vivid and delightful history of a charmed decade in the greatest city in the world.




Seven Ages of Paris


Book Description

In this luminous portrait of Paris, the celebrated historian gives us the history, culture, disasters, and triumphs of one of the world’s truly great cities. While Paris may be many things, it is never boring. From the rise of Philippe Auguste through the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIV (who abandoned Paris for Versailles); Napoleon’s rise and fall; Baron Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris (at the cost of much of the medieval city); the Belle Epoque and the Great War that brought it to an end; the Nazi Occupation, the Liberation, and the postwar period dominated by de Gaulle--Horne brings the city’s highs and lows, savagery and sophistication, and heroes and villains splendidly to life. With a keen eye for the telling anecdote and pivotal moment, he portrays an array of vivid incidents to show us how Paris endures through each age, is altered but always emerges more brilliant and beautiful than ever. The Seven Ages of Paris is a great historian’s tribute to a city he loves and has spent a lifetime learning to know. "Knowledgeable and colorful, written with gusto and love.... [An] ambitious and skillful narrative that covers the history of Paris with considerable brio and fervor." —LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW