Like most Parisians, I have a love affair with the metro. It’s not love/hate, as the relationship is for some. I just love it. I love the humming sound of the closing-doors warning, the corny Wall Street English ads and crappy poems posted on the walls of the cars—I even love its smell. It makes [...]

It’s here! Shakespeare and Company’s newly relaunched literary magazine, dubbed by founder George Whitman “The Poor Man’s Paris Review,” has just arrived at the shop. I picked up my copy last night and it is gorgeous– chic and sexy and all the things you’d want a newly-relaunched literary magazine to be.
They’re on sale at the shop [...]

A few months ago all I was hearing was Lunch in Paris, Lunch in Paris—it seemed everyone who was anyone was reading Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes, by Elizabeth Bard. As usual I was a bit behind on my reading, but I launched into it finally (and appropriately) on my most recent [...]

Maybe your next trip to Paris isn’t just around the corner—but your heart and appetite have taken up permanent residence here. In that case, you will definitely want The French Women Don’t Get Fat Cookbook, recently published by Atria Books. This is the latest offering from Mireille Guiliano, everyone’s favorite expert Frenchwoman. As we might [...]

I picked up Graham Robb’s book, The Discovery of France at the St Pancras Station bookstore in London before returning to Paris on the Eurostar in January. I was sold on the stellar reviews it received from all the major British newspapers. On the back cover I read, “It’s a book that reveals the ‘real’ past [...]

Last week, Elizabeth Hawes, a former New Yorker contributor, presented her biography Camus, A Romance to a packed crowd. I have to admit I wasn’t particularly motivated to go to the reading at first. I’ve been riding the positivity high of late, and an evening talk on Camus just sounded like, well, not exactly a funfest. Thankfully I went (note to [...]

Ah, the good old days. It’s hard not to be

nostalgic when flipping through the new coffee table book Paris Vogue Covers 1920-2009. As you go back in time, the covers get dreamier, more cinematic. Some don’t feature what we consider today to be a no-brainer—a model looking directly into camera. In the past, a model’s [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]