Paris And Elsewhere

Perhaps no one loves France as much as the English--at least some of the English--and Richard Cobb, the incomparable Oxford historian of the French Revolution, was a passionate admirer of the country, a connoisseur of the low dive and the flophouse, as well as a longtime familiar of the quays of Paris and the docks of Le Havre and Marseille. Collecting memoirs, portraits of favorite haunts, appreciations of Simenon and Queneau, Rene Clair and Brassai, and including the famous polemic "The Assassination of Paris," Paris and Elsewhere shows us a France unglimpsed by tourists.

Perhaps no one loves France as much as the English--at least some of the English--and Richard Cobb, the incomparable Oxford historian of the French Revolution, was a passionate admirer of the country, a connoisseur of the low dive and the flophouse, as well as a longtime familiar of the quays of Paris and the docks of Le Havre and Marseille. Collecting memoirs, portraits of favorite haunts, appreciations of Simenon and Queneau, Rene Clair and Brassai, and including the famous polemic "The Assassination of Paris," Paris and Elsewhere shows us a France unglimpsed by tourists.

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.

A trip through Paris as it will never be again-dark and dank and poor and slapdash and truly bohemian Paris, the City of Light, the city of fine dining and seductive couture and intellectual hauteur, was until fairly recently always accompanied by its shadow: the city of the poor, the outcast, the criminal, the eccentric, the willfully nonconforming. In The Other Paris, Lucy Sante gives us a panoramic view of that second metropolis, which has nearly vanished but whose traces are in the bricks and stones of the contemporary city, in the culture of France itself, and, by extension, throughout the world. Drawing on testimony from a great range of witnesses-from Balzac and Hugo to assorted boulevardiers, rabble-rousers, and tramps-Sante, whose thorough research is matched only by the vividness of her narration, takes the reader on a whirlwind tour. Richly illustrated with more than three hundred images, The Other Paris scuttles through the knotted streets of pre-Haussmann Paris, through the improvised accommodations of the original bohemians, through the whorehouses and dance halls and hobo shelters of the old city. A lively survey of labor conditions, prostitution, drinking, crime, and popular entertainment, and of the reporters, réaliste singers, pamphleteers, and poets who chronicled their evolution, The Other Paris is a book meant to upend the story of the French capital, to reclaim the city from the bons vivants and the speculators, and to hold a light to the works and lives of those expunged from its center by the forces of profit.

Fiction and essays inspired by Paris from more than 70 Anglophone writers -- A MoveableFeast for the twenty-first century. "When good Americans die, they go to Paris", wrote the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde in 1894. The French capital has always radiated an unmatched cultural, political and intellectual brilliance in the anglophone imagination, maintaining its status as the modern cosmopolitan city par excellence through the twentieth century to today. We'll Never Have Paris explores this enduring fascination with this myth of a bohemian and literary Paris (that of the Lost Generation, Joyce, Beckett and Shakespeare and Company) which also happens to be a largely anglophone construct -- one which the Eurostar and Brexit only seem to have exacerbated in recent years. Edited by Andrew Gallix, this collection brings together many of the most talented and adventurous writers from the UK, Ireland, USA, Australia and New Zealand to explore this theme through short stories, essays and poetry, in order to build up a captivating portrait of Paris as viewed by English speakers today -- A Moveable Feast for the twenty-first century. We'll Never Have Paris includes contributions from seventy-nine authors, including Tom McCarthy, Will Self, Brian Dillon, Joanna Walsh, Eley Williams, Max Porter, Sophie Mackintosh and Lauren Elkin.

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.

From the New York Times bestselling author of My Paris Kitchen and L'Appart, a deliciously funny, offbeat, and irreverent look at the city of lights, cheese, chocolate, and other confections. Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city and after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he finally moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood. But he soon discovered it's a different world en France. From learning the ironclad rules of social conduct to the mysteries of men's footwear, from shopkeepers who work so hard not to sell you anything to the etiquette of working the right way around the cheese plate, here is David's story of how he came to fall in love with—and even understand—this glorious, yet sometimes maddening, city. When did he realize he had morphed into un vrai parisien? It might have been when he found himself considering a purchase of men's dress socks with cartoon characters on them. Or perhaps the time he went to a bank with 135 euros in hand to make a 134-euro payment, was told the bank had no change that day, and thought it was completely normal. Or when he found himself dressing up to take out the garbage because he had come to accept that in Paris appearances and image mean everything. Once you stop laughing, the more than fifty original recipes, for dishes both savory and sweet, such as Pork Loin with Brown Sugar–Bourbon Glaze, Braised Turkey in Beaujolais Nouveau with Prunes, Bacon and Bleu Cheese Cake, Chocolate-Coconut Marshmallows, Chocolate Spice Bread, Lemon-Glazed Madeleines, and Mocha–Crème Fraîche Cake, will have you running to the kitchen for your own taste of Parisian living.

Expanding the narrow script of what it means to be Parisian, Laila Amine explores the novels, films, and street art made by Maghrebis, Franco-Arabs, and African Americans, including fiction by Charef, Chraïbi, Sebbar, Baldwin, Smith, and Wright, and such films as La haine, Made in France, Chouchou, and A Son.