Many books and blogs about Paris struggle to define what makes the locals so… Parisian. After all, people have pondered that for centuries. Not to mention the last decade of how-to volumes telling la wanna-be what to eat, wear and drink. Now four real Parisians have written similar manuals, each based on a blog about Paris—or, in [...]
David Lebovitz worked for 13 years at Alice Water’s legendary Chez Panisse restaurant and was named one of the Top Five Pastry Chefs in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Chronicle. His writing has been featured in Bon Appétit, Chocolatier, Cooking Light, Food+Wine, Cook’s Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times, People, Saveur, Sunset, and USA [...]
“150 years were needed to write this book,” notes author and historian Patrice de Moncan in the introduction of Paris Avant-Après, a book comparing Charles Marville’s 19th century pictures of Paris with photos of the same spots taken by his team today. A literary exaggeration perhaps, but representative of the labour of love the book [...]
Everyone’s marveling at today’s snowfall: “Flakes the size of latkes!” as one friend put it. So it’s the right moment look at Timeless Paris, the most wintry looking collection of Paris photographs I have come across. I’m not sure what Marian Crostic has done to her monument and garden landscapes; maybe sharpens them and selectively [...]
An arty new ‘zine with spiffy production values has just launched, called Mademoiselle London. With text in French and in English, the 32-page debut brims with emotions every young expat feels. The prose and poems are on the navel-gazing side, but the illustrations are inspired observations of multi-culti life set against the Old World background.
Within days of Time magazine’s publication of Don Morrison’s article on the decline of France as an international cultural power, French media “lit up like the Eiffel Tower in full sparkle.” Major French figures like Didier Jacob, Maurice Druon, Teresa Cremisi, Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, and François Busnel weighed in. The blogosphere went wild. Even foreigners got [...]
I was happy to learn on Friday that the crime author Lalie Walker was acquitted of all charges in the trial that pitted her against the owners of the Marché Saint Pierre. The management at the fabric store had accused her of harming the image of the shop, simply because she had set one of her stories, [...]
My friend and superb restaurant critic Alec Lobrano has updated his bestselling book Hungry for Paris. Hungry for Paris was first published in 2008 to rave reviews and has become an indispensable source for avid foodies combing the city for the best restaurants.In the 2010 edition Alec has removed some restaurants that are no longer [...]
Alan Riding: And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. Were artists “saving” French culture by working under the German occupation? Were they betraying France if they performed before German soldiers or made movies with Nazi approval? Was it the intellectual’s duty to take up arms against the occupier? Then, after Paris was liberated, [...]
Even when you’ve got your day-to-day bearings in Paris and feeling finally like your head is staying above water, there’s still plenty to learn. Whether it’s knowing the significance of the street names in your quartier, keeping all those King Louis straight, or understanding better why French society operates the way it does, reading a bit of history [...]
