Book picks similar to
100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go by Marcia DeSanctis
travel
france
nonfiction
non-fiction
French Women for All Seasons: A Year of Secrets, Recipes, and Pleasure
Mireille Guiliano - 2006
Mireille's answer? This buoyant book brimming with fresh advice and seasonal stories--on food "bien sur" (more than 100 delicious new recipes) but also on many other aspects of living that should bring us pleasure, such as picking a wine, dressing well, even arranging flowers. French women not only stay slim while relishing life to the fullest, they also have the longest life expectancy in the Western world. And now Mireille shows us how they attune themselves to the rhythms of the year. Together with a bounty of new dining ideas and menus, she offers us a treasury of tips on style, grooming, and entertaining, all designed to focus the mind on sensory pleasure for maximum enjoyment. Here are four seasons' worth of strategies for shopping, cooking, and exercising, as well as some pointers for looking effortlessly chic. Whether your aim is finding two scoopfuls of pleasure in one of "creme brulee" or entertaining beautifully when time is short and expectations are high, the inspiration you need is here. Taking us from her childhood in Alsace-Lorraine to her summers in Provence and her busy life in New York and Paris, this book of scrumptious Gallic wisdom and wit shows how anyone anywhere can develop a healthy, holistic lifestyle. In the voice that entranced more than a million honorary French women, Mireille demonstrates that there is indeed an art to joyful living, and that equilibrium--being "bien dans sa peau" and true to one's individual nature--is the key to a long and healthy life. Full of sage, irresistible advice on everything from decanting to detoxing, from yogurt to yoga, "French Women for All Seasons" is an essential guide to savoring all life's moments--in moderation, in season, and, above all, with pleasure.
Paris Letters
Janice MacLeod - 2014
Then she decided to make it a challenge. Over the next few months, with a little math and a lot of determination, she saved up enough to buy two years of freedom in Europe.But she had only been in Paris for a few days when she met a handsome butcher (with a striking resemblance to Daniel Craig)—and never went home again.A love story in the vein of Almost French and Lunch in Paris, Paris Letters (February 4) is a joyful romp through the City of Light, and an inspiring look at what can happen when we dare to create the life we want.Realizing that her Parisian love affair would be forever, MacLeod began her own business on Etsy, creating beautifully-illustrated letters from Paris inspired by artists like Percy Kelly and Beatrix Potter. She now paints and writes full-time, bringing beautiful things to subscribers around the world and reviving the lost art of letter-writing.
Edible French: Tasty Expressions and Cultural Bites
Clotilde Dusoulier - 2014
In this delightful book, Clotilde Dusoulier, creator of the award-winning food blog Chocolate & Zucchini, delves into the history and meaning of fifty of the French language’s most popular food-related expressions.Accompanied by beautiful watercolor illustrations by artist Mélina Josserand, Edible French explores whimsical turns of phrase such as:Tomber dans les pommes (falling into the apples) = faintingSe faire rouler dans la farine (being rolled in flour) = being fooledAvoir un cœur d’artichaut (having the heart of an artichoke) = falling in love easilyA treat of a read for Francophiles and food lovers alike, Edible French is the tastiest way to explore French culture—one that will leave you in high spirits—or, as the French say, vous donnera la pêche (give you the peach).
That Summer in Paris
Morley Callaghan - 1963
Ernest Hemingway was reading proofs of A Farewell to Arms, and a few blocks away F. Scott Fitzgerald was struggling with Tender Is the Night. As his first published book rose to fame in New York, Morley Callaghan arrived in Paris to share the felicities of literary life, not just with his two friends, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but also with fellow writers James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, and Robert McAlmon. Amidst these tangled relations, some friendships flourished while others failed. This tragic and unforgettable story comes to vivid life in Callaghan's lucid, compassionate prose.
A Writer's Paris: A Guided Journey For The Creative Soul
Eric Maisel - 2005
Experience it not as a tourist but as a creator, where you dedicate yourself to the bohemian writing life in picturesque parks, cafes, and bookstores.Writers and other creative souls will be captivated by the metaphor and reality of Paris as the artist's true home, and how it can inspire you to create. Authored by today's leading creativity coach, Eric Maisel, it's an inspirational read, and a dream journey for creatives.
Into A Paris Quartier: Reine Margot's Chapel and Other Haunts of St.-Germain
Diane Johnson - 2005
Now, the paperback edition of her delightful book will take even more Americans to the richly historic part of the city that has always attracted us, from Ben Franklin in the 18th-century to raffish novelist Henry Miller in the 20th.Modern St.-Germain is lively and prosperous, and fifty years ago its heady mix of jazz and existentialism defined urbane cool, but Johnson takes a longer view. "Beside the shades of Jean-Paul Sartre and Edith Piaf," she writes, "there is another crowd of resident ghosts... misty figures in plumed hats whose fortunes and passions were enacted among these beautiful, imposing buildings." From her kitchen window, she looks out on a chapel begun by Reine Margot, wife of Henri IV; nearby streets are haunted by the shades of two sinister cardinals, Mazarin and Richelieu, as well as four famed queens and at least five kings. Delacroix, Corot, Ingres, David, and Manet all lived in St.-Germain; Oscar Wilde died there; and everybody who was anybody visited sooner or later.With her delicious imagination and wry, opinionated voice, Diane Johnson makes a companionable and fascinating guide to a classic neighborhood as cosmopolitan as it is quintessentially French.
Something to Declare: Essays on France
Julian Barnes - 2002
He describes the elegant tour of France that Henry James and Edith Wharton made in 1907, and the orgy of drugs and suffering of the Tour de France in our own time. An unparalleled connoisseur of French writing and writers, Barnes gives us his thoughts on the prolific and priapic Simenon, on Sand, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé ("If literature is a spectrum, and Hugo hogs the rainbow, then Mallarmé is working in ultra-violet"). In several dazzling excursions into the prickly genius of Flaubert, Barnes discusses his letters; his lover Louise Colet; and his biographers (Sartre's The Family Idiot, "an intense, unfinished, three-volume growl at Flaubert, is mad, of course"). He delves into Flaubert's friendship with Turgenev; looks at the "faithful betrayal" of Claude Chabrol's film version of Madame Bovary; and reveals the importance of the pharmacist's assistant, the most major minor character in Flaubert's great novel: "if Madame Bovary were a mansion, Justin would be the handle to the back door; but great architects have the design of door-furniture in mind even as they lay out the west wing."For lovers of France and all things French-and of Julian Barnes's singular wit and intelligence-Something to Declare is an unadulterated joy to read.
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong
Jean-Benoît Nadeau - 2003
Decrypting French ideas about land, privacy and language, Nadeau and Barlow weave together the threads of French society--from centralization and the Napoleonic Code to elite education and even street protests--giving us, for the first time, a complete picture of the French.
The Streets of Paris: A Guide to the City of Light Following in the Footsteps of Famous Parisians Throughout History
Susan Cahill - 2017
In this beautifully illustrated book, Susan Cahill recounts the lives of twenty-two famous Parisians and then takes you through the seductive streets of Paris to the quartiers where they lived and worked: their homes, the scenes of their greatest triumphs and tragedies, their favorite cafes, bars, and restaurants, and the off-the-beaten-track places where they found inspiration and love.From Sainte-Chapelle on the Ile de la Cite to the cemetery Pere Lachaise to Montmartre and the Marais, Cahill not only brings to life the bold characters of a tumultuous history and the arts of painting, music, sculpture, film, and literature, she takes you on a relaxed walking tour in the footsteps of these celebrated Parisians.Each chapter opens with a beautiful four-color illustration by photographer Marion Ranoux, and every tour begins with a Metro stop and ends with a list of "Nearbys"--points of interest along the way, including cafes, gardens, squares, museums, bookstores, churches, and, of course, patisseries.
Paris in Stride: An Insider's Walking Guide
Jessie Kanelos Weiner - 2018
Charmingly illustrated throughout, this practical guide will transport readers to the delightful sites and discoveries of Paris. Vibrant watercolors illustrate destinations including architectural marvels, gardens, historical highlights, cultural hubs, markets, food and wine favorites, and lots of little "je ne sais quoi's" that make Paris so magical. Cultural musings, accessible histories, anecdotes, and informative details accompany the illustrations throughout, making this volume truly as practical as it is beautiful.The book features seven specially curated daylong walking tours. Winsome watercolor maps of the "promenades" with colorful icons of suggested sites guide readers through the romantic, winding Parisian streets, passing cafes, historical sights, small galleries, outdoor markets, and the kind of authentic and timeless places that one hopes to find when imagining the city. The careful artistry, insider's musings, and approachable readability--both visually and texturally--in this book will delight and inspire tourists and armchair travelers alike.
Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris
A.J. Liebling - 1959
Liebling recalls his Parisian apprenticeship in the fine art of eating in this charming memoir.No writer has written more enthusiastically about food than A. J. Liebling. Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, the great New Yorker writer's last book, is a wholly appealing account of his éducation sentimentale in French cuisine during 1926 and 1927, when American expatriates like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein made café life the stuff of legends. A native New Yorker who had gone abroad to study, Liebling shunned his coursework and applied himself instead to the fine art of eating – or “feeding,” as he called it. The neighborhood restaurants of the Left Bank became his homes away from home, the fragrant wines his constant companions, the rich French dishes a test of his formidable appetite. is a classic account of the pleasures of good eating, and a matchless evocation of a now-vanished Paris.
C'est la Vie: An American Woman Begins a New Life in Paris and--Voila!--Becomes Almost French
Suzy Gershman - 2004
Suzy had always fantasized about moving to Paris with her husband, but when he dies unexpectedly, she decides to fulfill their dream alone. Here she gives a deliciously conversational chronicle of her first year in Paris and of the dizzying delights and maddening frustrations of learning to be a Parisian. Filled with Gershman’s insider’s tips on everything from cooking the perfect clafoutis to—naturally—shopping, C’est la Vie is delightfully entertaining and captures the exhilarating experience of beginning a new adventure.
Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet (Modern Library Food)
Ruth Reichl - 2004
Collected here for the first time, their essays create a unique and timeless portrait of the world capital of love and food. When the book begins, just after the war, we are in a hungry city whose chefs struggle to find the eggs and cream they need to re-create the cuisine from before the German occupation. We watch as Paris comes alive again with zinc-topped tables crowded with people drinking café au lait and reveling in crisp baguettes, and the triumphant rebirth of three-star cuisine. In time, nouvelle cuisine is born and sweeps through a newly chic and modern city. It is all here: the old-time bourgeois dinners, the tastemakers of the fashion world, the hero-chefs, and, of course, Paris in all its snobbery and refinement, its inimitable pursuit of the art of fine living. Beautifully written, these dispatches from the past are intimate and immediate, allowing us to watch the month-by-month changes in the world’s most wonderful city. Remembrance of Things Paris is a book for anyone who wants to return to a Paris where a buttery madeleine is waiting around every corner.Contributors include Louis Diat, Naomi Barry, Joseph Wechsberg, Judith and Evan Jones, Don Dresden, Lillian Langseth-Christensen, Diane Johnson, Michael Lewis, and Jonathan Gold.
A Family in Paris: Stories of Food, Life and Adventure
Jane Paech - 2011
It introduces us to the Parisians and their eccentricities, explores the intricate rituals of daily life, and takes us beyond the well-trodden tourist sites to the best eating spots, boutiques, museums and markets that only a local could know about.Frank, intimate and beautifully photographed, A Family in Paris is about making a home in a strange land, finding a community, and discovering the joy of renewal.
French Ways and Their Meaning
Edith Wharton - 1919
During the First World War, while living in France and devoting herself to numerous war and relief efforts, she wrote several essays about the French and the unique attributes of their civilization, having in mind particularly the need for both Americans and the English to understand the ways of a people whose nation they were defending in the Great War. These pieces were first published in book form in 1919, under the title French Ways and Their Meaning.