Archive for the 'Books on Paris' Category


Gift-worthy Books

Librarie OFR is one of my favorite bookshops in Paris. Every time I walk by I am drawn in and spend a minimum of 15 minutes (usually way longer even if I am late somewhere) browsing their selection of books and magazines covering all ranges of design-graphic, textile, furniture, object, fashion, as well as art [...]

Moonlight in Odessa

I just finished reading Moonlight in Odessa, the first novel by American-born Paris expat  Janet Skeslien Charles.
Most Anglophone writers in Paris know Janet from the famous Shakespeare & Company bookstore, where she has taught a writing workshop for several years. As one of her former students I was thrilled to hear about her published book. And like a [...]

The Queens of Provence

Once upon a time, when the country of France as we know it today did not yet exist, there lived four beautiful princesses in a magical kingdom known as Provence. Not one of them pricked her finger on a spindle, kissed a frog, or was locked up in a forgotten tower. Actually the true story [...]

The Food Bouquiniste

 
If you’re anything like me, you barely give Paris’ bouquinistes a passing glance if you happen to be strolling along the Seine. Assuming that they are selling overpriced art nouveau posters and street sign magnets to tourists, you keep your eyes forward, and may even cross the street to avoid the hassle of dodging the [...]

My Summer Read

I read Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay in one sitting finishing after midnight and much too keyed up to go to bed. de Rosnay presents two intertwined stories, one of Sarah, a young girl among the thousands of Jews who were rounded up by the French police on July 16, 1942, and the other, an American journalist [...]

Retail Details

It “exudes a youthful energy that promises to make Paris an even more exciting place.” The new coffeetable book Shop Image Graphics in Paris is describing Point WC, a public toilet that has its own online shop of chic accessories, such as black toilet paper. The book captures what every lover of Paris knows: the [...]

A New Eye on Eiffel

 
Late in the first act of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George,” about the painting of Georges Seurat’s masterpiece Sunday Afternoon the Island of La Grande Jatte, as they sit in the park on the eponymous island, Seurat’s mother says to her son: “What’s that? Off in the distance?” A tower, he tells her; [...]

A Moveable Feast: Part Deux

 
One of my clients sent me an article about a new edition of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast that came out released today. Writer and editor Sean Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s grandson, took on restoring his grandfather’s original manuscript after his uncle Patrick suggested he re-examine them. He discovered that Mary, Ernest’s wife and his godmother, had [...]

Sideways Through Paris

 
Amphibious Andromeda is like taking a walk through the artist’s mind as he walks through Paris.  Think of it as an Accidental Tourist Guide to Paris.
What he calls a “journal of everyday life,” kept between July 24 and October 20th of 2007, Ricardo Bloch disassembles and reconfigures a unique daily walk through his Paris world in Amphibious Andromeda. Visually [...]

Select-ive Reading

“A tribute so pleasant and persuasive that swarming tourists may make it difficult for Fitch and Tulka to find a table,” says the Kirkus Review about Paris artist Rick Tulka’s new book of portraits produced at Le Sélect, one of the most famous cafés in Paris, and a beacon for Americans on the Left Bank. Tulka can [...]