Literary Paris: A Photographic Tour


Nichole Robertson - 2019
    Paris in Color author Nichole Robertson turns her lens onto spots both legendary and little-known, highlighting quiet moments that every booklover savors—inviting cafe scenes, comfy chairs, enticing book nooks—and the weathered charm of places steeped in centuries of literary history. Quotes by great writers such as Balzac and Colette are interspersed throughout, while a timeline and an index of featured locations round out the volume. This bijou treasure of a book will inspire every creative soul who dreams of following in the footsteps of their literary heroes.

Le Road Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love and France


Vivian Swift - 2012
    Le Road Trip combines the appeal of the iconic American quest with France's irresistible allure, offering readers a totally new perspective of life on the road.Le Road Trip tells the story of one idyllic French honeymoon trip, but it is also a witty handbook of tips and advice on how to thrive as a traveler, a captivating visual record with hundreds of watercolor illustrations, and a chronicle depicting the incomparable charms of being footloose in France. Armchair travelers, die-hard vagabonds, art journalists, and red wine drinkers will all find something to savor in this story.

A Castle in the Backyard: The Dream of a House in France


Betsy Draine - 2002
    After falling in love with a small stone house set beneath a medieval castle in Perigord, they bought the tranquil getaway located in one of the most beautiful river valleys in Europe. In this delightful memoir Betsy and Michael offer an intimate glimpse of a region little known to Americans - the Dordogne valley, its castles and prehistoric art, its walking trails and earthy cuisine, its people and traditions - and describe the charms and mishaps of setting up housekeeping thousands of miles from home. Insightful and poignant, this memoir chronicles the transformation of Perigord as development poses a challenge to its graceful way of life, and evokes the personal exuberance of starting over, even in mid-life.

101 Damnations: Dispatches from the 101st Tour de France


Ned Boulting - 2014
    Or sunflowers. (Though it does wax lyrical about some stunning Alpine scenery . . . and, with the race starting in Yorkshire, even some stunning scenery not far from Bradford).From Leeds to Paris (how often do you say that?), Ned details the minutiae of his encounters with the likes of Vincenzo Nibali, David Millar, Chris Froome, Chris Boardman (or ‘Broadman’ as some would have it), Marcel Kittel, Mrs Cavendish (Mark’s wife), Peter Sagan and the rest. Their endeavours, achievements, humour and occasional rancour, sit alongside his own decade-long quest for the ideal end-of-race T-shirt.Ned weaves together the interesting, amusing and unheralded threads of the race itself, and reflects on his own perennial struggle to get round, get on and get by. 101 Damnations encapsulates all that is incredible – and incredibly ordinary – about the greatest race on earth.

A la Mod: My So-Called Tranquil Family Life in Rural France


Ian Moore
    Tired of being unable to park anywhere near his cramped house in a noisy town he doesn’t like, he hatches a plan to move his wife and young son to a remote corner of the Loire Valley in search of serenity and space. Several years later, Ian finds himself up to his neck in bilingual offspring, feral cats, promiscuous horses, dysfunctional spaniels and needy hens; he’s wrestling with electric fences, a foreign language, a mountain of animal waste and a wife who collects livestock like there’s a biblical flood on the horizon, all while trying not to dirty his loafers. But despite the ups, downs and increasing demands of Ian’s showbiz career, the Moore family persevere in true Brit style to create a unique, colourful and ultimately rewarding life in their new home – à la campagne and à la mod!

NZ Frenzy: New Zealand South Island


Scott Cook - 2010
    This guidebook is not meant to replace a Lonely Planet/Frommers/Rough Guide, but rather to compliment them. In NZ Frenzy you'll find info about all the South's must-see spots, plus detailed info about the lesser-known and unheralded off-the-beaten-path wonder spots. This guidebook goes WAY beyond the vague outdoor info in the mainstream travel guidebooks. NZ Frenzy is about giving you the details you'll need to find the "real" NZ, the one without lines of tour buses, the one without brochures of pay-to-see commercialized natural "attractions". NZ Frenzy, unlike any of the other mainstream guidebooks, will deliver you to the New Zealand that you've been planning for and fantasizing about. I guarantee it. Please read the reviews of NZ Frenzy North Island to see what travelers think of my info. Are you going to NZ to be a tourist at touristy crowded places or do you want to find the "Real" New Zealand that you'll tell stories about?? When you have an NZ Frenzy in hand, you'll leave the other guidebooks in the glove box and you'll leave the tourists behind!! The South Island has natural wonders beyond compare, but the mainstream media only promotes the commercialized stuff. Don't waste your precious time while in NZ waiting in line at the tourist visitor centers...get NZ Frenzy and go experience the Real New Zealand, the Fabled New Zealand. You can have the trip of a lifetime, you will have the trip of a lifetime!!

Paris in the Fifties


Stanley Karnow - 1997
    He stayed for ten years, first as a student and later as a correspondent for Time magazine. By the time he left, Karnow knew Paris so intimately that his French colleagues dubbed him "le plus parisien des Américains" --the most Parisian American. Now, Karnow returns to the France of his youth, perceptively and wittily illuminating a time and place like none other. Karnow came to France at a time when the French were striving to return to the life they had enjoyed before the devastation of World War II. Yet even during food shortages, political upheavals, and the struggle to come to terms with a world in which France was no longer the mighty power it had been, Paris remained a city of style, passion, and romance. Paris in the Fifties transports us to Latin Quarter cafés and basement jazz clubs, to unheated apartments and glorious ballrooms. We meet such prominent political figures as Charles de Gaulle and Pierre Mendès-France, as well as Communist hacks and the demagogic tax rebel Pierre Poujade. We get to know illustrious intellectuals, among them Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and André Malraux, and visit the glittering salons where aristocrats with exquisite manners mingled with trendy novelists, poets, critics, artists, composers, playwrights, and actors. We meet Christian Dior, who taught Karnow the secrets of haute couture, and Prince Curnonsky, France's leading gourmet, who taught the young reporter to appreciate the complexities of haute cuisine. Karnow takes us to marathon murder trials in musty courtrooms, accompanies a group of tipsy wine connoisseurs on a tour of the Beaujolais vineyards, and recalls the famous automobile race at Le Mans when a catastrophic accident killed more than eighty spectators. Back in Paris, Karnow hung out with visiting celebrities like Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, and Audrey Hepburn, and in Paris in the Fifties we meet them too.A veteran reporter and historian, Karnow has written a vivid and delightful history of a charmed decade in the greatest city in the world.

After the Roundup: Escape and Survival in Hitler’s France


Joseph Weismann - 2017
    After being held for five days in appalling conditions in the Vélodrome d'Hiver stadium, Joseph and his family were transported by cattle car to the Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp and brutally separated: all the adults and most of the children were transported on to Auschwitz and certain death, but 1,000 children were left behind to wait for a later train. The French guards told the children left behind that they would soon be reunited with their parents, but Joseph and his new friend, Joe Kogan, chose to risk everything in a daring escape attempt. After eluding the guards and crawling under razor-sharp barbed wire, Joseph found freedom. But how would he survive the rest of the war in Nazi-occupied France and build a life for himself? His problems had just begun.Until he was 80, Joseph Weismann kept his story to himself, giving only the slightest hints of it to his wife and three children. Simone Veil, lawyer, politician, President of the European Parliament, and member of the Constitutional Council of France—herself a survivor of Auschwitz—urged him to tell his story. In the original French version of this book and in Roselyne Bosch’s 2010 film La Rafle, Joseph shares his compelling and terrifying story of the Roundup of the Vél’ d’Hiv and his escape. Now, for the first time in English, Joseph tells the rest of his dramatic story in After the Roundup.

Paris Street Style


Isabelle Thomas - 2013
    French fashion writers Isabelle Thomas and Frédérique Veysset break down the “je ne sais quoi” of Paris street style, describing the essential elements that should be in everyone’s wardrobe. Renowned experts on French style—designers, stylists, editors, and celebrities—also chime in to reveal their favorite accessories and how to create multidimensional looks and make affordable clothing appear luxurious. Starring both fashion icons and anonymous women met on the streets of Paris and richly illustrated with hand-drawn sketches and Veysset’s striking photographs, Paris Street Style is an inspirational fashion guide that will allow you, no matter where you are from, to cultivate an everyday style of timeless glamour, careless, easy chic—votre style français.Praise for Paris Street Style:“In this fun new book, a pair of fashion bloggers promise to reveal the secrets of their compatriots’ mysterious and seemingly innate ability to look sophisticated under any circumstances. With the help of hand-drawn illustrations and photos of models, fashionistas and anonymous women met in the street, they dissect the essential elements of les Parisiennes’ deceptively casual, highly individualistic brand of urban chic and offer readers tips galore on creating their own personal style.” —France Magazine

WWI: Tales from the Trenches


Daniel Wrinn - 2020
    Uncover their mesmerizing, realistic stories of combat, courage, and distress in readable and balanced stories told from the front lines.Witness the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced U-boat packs and strategic bombing, unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners.World War I reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of our modern world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole populations lost their national identities.If you like gripping, authentic accounts of life and combat during WWI, then you won't want to miss WWI: Tales from the Trenches.

Hungry for Paris: The Ultimate Guide to the City's 102 Best Restaurants


Alexander Lobrano - 2008
    . . . If you’re passionate about eating well during your next trip to Paris, you couldn’t ask for a better travel companion than Alexander Lobrano’s charming, friendly, and authoritative Hungry for Paris, the first new comprehensive guide in many years to the city’s restaurant scene. Lobrano, Gourmet magazine’s European correspondent, has written for almost every major food and travel magazine since he became an American in Paris in 1986. Here he shares his personal selection of the city’s 102 best restaurants, each of which is portrayed in savvy, fun, lively descriptions that are not only indispensable for finding a superb meal but a pleasure to read. Lobrano reveals the hottest young chefs, the coziest bistros, the best buys–including those haute cuisine restaurants that are really worth the money–and the secret places Parisians love most, together with information on the most delicious dishes, ambience, clientele, and history of each restaurant. A series of delightful essays cover various aspects of dining in Paris, including “Table for One” (how to eat alone), “The Four Seasons” (the best of seasonal eating in Paris), and “Eating the Unspeakable” (learning to eat what you don’t think you like). All restaurants are keyed to helpful maps, and the book is seasoned with beautiful photographs by Life magazine photographer Bob Peterson that will only help whet your appetite for tasting Paris.

Complete Surrender - The True Story of a Family's Dark Secret and the Brothers it Tore Apart at Birth


Dave Sharp - 2008
    He lived his life happily as a bricklayer and grew up and honest man who loved soccer. In his 60s, he set about the long and arduous process of trying to find out who his real parents were. After much searching he discovered the family who had given him up for adoption and met up with them. He also scheduled to meet with the man he believed to be his half-brother; this man, it turned out, was the noted novelist Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and On Chesil Beach. A shocking revelation concerning a family affair that had long lain hidden was soon unearthed, and Dave learned that Ian was in fact his full brother. This is the amazing and heartwarming story of a sons wish to find his family, and two men gaining the brother that they had always wished for.

The New Paris: The People, Places Ideas Fueling a Movement


Lindsey Tramuta - 2017
    In the last few years, a flood of new ideas and creative locals has infused a once-static, traditional city with a new open-minded sensibility and energy. Journalist Lindsey Tramuta offers detailed insight into the rapidly evolving worlds of food, wine, pastry, coffee, beer, fashion, and design in the delightful city of Paris. Tramuta puts the spotlight on the new trends and people that are making France’s capital a more whimsical, creative, vibrant, and curious place to explore than its classical reputation might suggest. With hundreds of striking photographs that capture this fresh, animated spirit, The New Paris shows us the storied City of Light as never before.

Study Guide for Book Clubs: A Gentleman in Moscow


Kathryn Cope - 2017
    A comprehensive guide to Amor Towles' acclaimed new novel 'A Gentleman in Moscow', this discussion aid includes a wealth of information and resources: useful literary and historical context; an author biography; a plot synopsis; analyses of themes & imagery; character analysis; twenty thought-provoking discussion questions; recommended further reading and even a quick quiz. For those in book clubs, this useful companion guide takes the hard work out of preparing for meetings and guarantees productive discussion. For solo readers, it encourages a deeper examination of a multi-layered text.

Bon Courage! A French Renovation in Rural Limousin


Richard Wiles - 2003
    But for English couple Richard and his wife Al, the cavernous, oak-beamed building in a sleepy hamlet of the Limousin region of France is perfect. Tussles with French bureaucracy allied with fierce storms that wreak havoc on the property do little to dampen resolve as they immerse themselves in the calm of this quiet corner of France, taking trips in Richard's balloon and starting their very own llama farm. Their colorful, often eccentric neighbors are always ready to lend a hand: the jovial ex-Gendarme and his wife, who is able to foretell the weather; a lonely widow who offers copious amounts of gateaux in exchange for convivial chat; and a brawny cattleman with suspicious motives in offering to clean up the couple's land. This often hilarious and heartwarming tale is one of obstacles overcome and dreams fulfilled.