Archive for the ‘book review’ Category

Paris as Therapy by Tom Reeves
A Review of My (Part-Time) Paris Life by Lisa Anselmo

Monday, October 10th, 2016
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When I first opened this book, I wasn’t sure that I would want to finish it: it seemed to be about a confused woman with a troubled mind, working through her problems. I didn’t think that I’d want to spend my time reading about her sorrows and I didn’t think that I’d have the patience to read to the end to see if she overcame them.

But as I continued to read, I became intrigued with her story: her mother was a desperately unhappy woman who smothered her daughter with love on the one hand, but, on the other, tried to undermine her daughter’s career aspirations when she realized that they would draw her away from home. When the mother finally died of cancer, the daughter was left with a great sense of loss—an overwhelming attachment to the memory of her mother coupled with confusion about how to get on with her life. Was she worthy of aspiring to happiness? This seems to be the overarching question that she needed to resolve, and that is where Paris comes into the story.

The mother and daughter had planned to travel to Paris just before the mother died. After the mother’s death, the daughter traveled to Paris with her sister and, at some point, decided to purchase an apartment there. And for the rest of the book, the daughter, step by hesitant step, transfers her life from New York City to Paris. By the end of the book, she realizes that the challenge of moving to and living in the City of Light has helped her acquire a sense of entitlement to strive for happiness.

The book is full of descriptive detail about Paris. I especially enjoyed reading the descriptions of the neighborhood in which Anselmo purchased a small apartment, the French people she met, and her difficulties in learning the language. I appreciated her descriptions of food, cafés, and restaurants and, near the end of the book, her narrative about the château where she joined a French family for a three-day feast. It all rang true to me, a resident of the French capital for the last twenty-four years and a Francophile since 1975.

This book will appeal to readers who nurture a dream of someday moving to Paris, or to those who simply want to read a good adventure story about a woman who sets out to change her life.

My (Part-Time) Paris Life by Lisa Anselmo is available on Amazon.

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Tom Reeves is the author of Dining Out in Paris – What You Need to Know Before You Get to the City of Light.

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Paris as Therapy by Tom Reeves
A Review of My (Part-Time) Paris Life by Lisa Anselmo

Saving Mona Lisa — A Book Review

Monday, January 12th, 2015
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Saving Mona Lisa

Gerri Chanel’s book Saving Mona Lisa (2014; Heliopa Press) is a fascinating account of the efforts of the directors, staff, and employees of the Louvre museum to move most of its precious art collection to safekeeping just prior to the opening days of World War II and then again during the German occupation.

In 1933, alarmed by the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany, and acting on the premise that Germany would eventually invade France, the director of the Louvre began to make plans with his curators to identify safe locations in different areas of the country in which to store the museum’s artworks. By the time Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact in 1939, employees at the Louvre were ready to begin the task of packing and moving.

Saving Mona Lisa recounts in detail the daunting logistics of packing thousands of artworks—some of them oversized, cumbersome pieces—and transporting them by truck to manors and châteaux throughout France that had been identified as places that the Germans would be unlikely to bomb during an invasion. Not only did difficult transportation arrangements have to be made, but once the works of art arrived at their destinations, they had to be properly stored to protect them from damage by fire and humidity.

Once the Germans invaded and occupied France, they set up a taskforce to identify works of art that they wanted to seize and remove to Germany for an enormous museum that Hitler planned to create in Linz, Austria. Several of Hitler’s henchmen also targeted certain works for their personal collections. Saving Mona Lisa recounts the ingenious efforts of Jacques Jaujard, director of the Louvre, to thwart the Germans in their endeavors.

Chanel has succeeded in writing a compelling epic from material that could have inspired only a dry recounting of the Louvre’s effort to protect its treasures. Carefully researched, Saving Mona Lisa recounts important historical details, not only about the undertaking, but also about World War II France and the many French men and women who risked their lives to protect the museum’s precious heritage.

Gerri Chanel’s book Saving Mona Lisa: The Battle to Protect the Louvre and its Treasures During World War II can be purchased on Amazon.

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Author David Burke Reviews Dining Out in Paris

Saturday, September 6th, 2014
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Dining Out in Paris

As a longtime resident in Paris, I can highly recommend Dining Out in Paris, especially for people coming for long stays. What I particularly admire is the crystal clear introduction to the different kinds of eating places one finds here, which are confusing at first as, for example, what’s the difference between what one can expect a at restaurant versus a bistro versus a brasserie versus a café in terms of the look and the service and the types of food they serve, and salons de thé and bars à vin, what you can get there besides tea and wine, with some items overlapping, but some quite different. The book also explains the terms for the order of the meal, the entrée, the plat principal, and the dessert, and beyond the eateries, it gives you an excellent run-down on all kinds of shops for things to eat and drink, from fromage to vin to glace and sorbet and chocolates – the works! This is just what the subtitle says, “What you need before you get to the City of Light.”

I’ve only had time to get to one of the eating places, the vegetarian Café Ginger, in my Bastille neighborhood. Everything was delicious and surprising, and the description in the book was right on.

Another thing I like about this book is that it has none of the usual culinary suspects, and the restaurants they recommend are located in colorful parts of Paris, mostly away from the tourist areas, and are not all are French. Half of the eateries they recommend are savory-sounding places from other parts it the world. Instead of running down a quick list, this book recommends and critiques only twelve restaurants, studying them with deep care and evident pleasure and writing about them in them with rich, enticing descriptions. I commend their approach. They love good food and know how to explain it, and with plenty of happy surprises all the way.

Bravo!

David Burke is author of Writers In Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light.

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Angels of Paris
By Rosemary Flannery

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014
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Angels of Paris by Rosemary Flannery

Rosemary Flannery has written an intriguing book about images of angels that we see almost every day while walking around Paris, but never stop to think about. Her book, Angels of Paris, lists dozens of sculptures and images of angels, cherubs, genies, putti…any human-looking creature, large or small, adult or infant, that has wings. Flannery has found them on door knockers, church steeples, pediments, sundials, columns, niches, grills, just about everywhere.

She classifies three types of angels:

Renommées – these are adult angels that celebrate the fame of a person or a group.

Génies – these are angels that one finds on public and private buildings, often flanking a seal or blazon.

Angels – these are messengers of God found on church doorways, steeples, and roofs.

Some angels are celebratory and some are simply decorative or symbolic. The large angel on the face of a certain apartment building in the 3rd arrondissement, for example, is a decorative element that softens the façade’s oblique angle. In another part of town, two génies support a lightning rod on the roof of the Châtelet Theater. Perhaps they symbolize the benevolent protection that the heavenly host accords to theatergoers on stormy nights.

Elsewhere in Paris, angels are portrayed bearing coats of arms, or gifts, such as macarons, flowers, and fruits.

Angels of Paris contains photographs of over seventy angels, arranged by chapter. Each chapter represents an arrondissement, or district, of Paris, and within each chapter the angels are arranged in chronological order according to the date on which they were installed on their particular building. The oldest angel in Paris dates from 1146 – 1148, and the newest from 1936.

More than simply a book about angels, Angels of Paris is also about the history of the city and those who participated in its embellishment. Flannery has carefully researched the lives of the artists and sculptors who created each angel and except where no information was available, recounts each artist’s role in the beautification of the city. Some readers might find her use of architectural terms deterring, but those who bear with her will find their appreciation of the architectural beauty of the city richly enhanced.

Measuring only 6¼” by 6¼”, Angels of Paris is a small hardcover book that can be carried and consulted as one strolls around this enchanting city.

To learn more about Angels of Paris, follow this link: Angels of Paris – An Architectural Tour Through the History of Paris.

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Award-winning Author Reviews Dining Out in Paris

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014
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Dining Out in Paris

Indispensable! Tom Reeves’s Dining Out in Paris doesn’t just recommend places to eat. This is a guide book that decodes all the little customs, cultural quirks and expressions of speech a visitor to Parisian eateries will encounter. A longtime American expatriate who knows and loves his adopted city, Tom Reeves proposes restaurants that are off the beaten tourist tracks. Best of all, this book celebrates the multiculturalism of Paris, in all its variety and vibrancy. For visitors in search of an authentic Parisian dining experience, this book is indispensable!

Jake Lamar, author of Rendezvous Eighteenth and Ghosts of Saint-Michel.

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Are We There Yet? – 90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French

Wednesday, July 16th, 2014
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Author Shari Leslie Segall and publisher Lisa Vanden Bos have collaborated to produce a witty little book, 90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French, in the guise of a checklist for Americans living in Paris to help them determine how well they have integrated into French culture.

Colorfully illustrated by artist Judit Halász, this concisely-written book challenges expat readers to reflect on how much they have adapted to what they initially must have perceived as quirky customs when they first arrived in the French capital: stores closed at inconvenient times, crossing the handwritten number 7, addressing people with the formal “vous” rather than the informal “tu,” eating bread without butter, putting on a stoic face—rather than a happy one—when walking down the street…the list goes on.

I took exception to a few of the depictions of the French, not finding them to ring true from my experience. But Segall has been living French corporate culture—she is a consultant in cross-cultural communication—and her experiences are necessarily different from mine. I find, for example, that the French are quite punctual, and I am always surprised when I hear people declare that they are not.

Americans living in Paris will enjoy reading this book, and those first-timers dreaming about living a Parisian adventure will profit from the knowledge they gain before setting foot in the City of Light.

90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French can be purchased on Amazon. Click here to learn more!

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Tales of Storms and Other Encounters
A Book Review by Monique Y. Wells

Friday, May 18th, 2012
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Tales of Storms and Other Encounters

Tales of Storms and Other Encounters is a stimulating book of short stories by Michele S. Kurlander. Kurlander is a Francophile like few others I’ve met. She frequently writes articles about her experiences in Paris and has included two stories about the city in Tales of Storms, which is her first book.

In “Notre Dame,” the young protagonist Angela seeks redemption within the cathedral whose “two muscular arms reached up into the sky” and whose “faceted circle of stone rested in its forehead like a third eye.” All the helplessness and confusion that Angela feels are evoked in Kurlander’s description of the cold, wet city that she encounters as she searches for the church and again when she is caught in a downpour after running from it with money that she has stolen from a coin box. Derek, the cause of her distress, has brought her to the City of Light and she thinks that she has escaped him. But fate has something different in mind…

“The Bridge” is the story of a married woman who was caught in a rainstorm and “saved” from an old beggar woman on the Pont des Arts by a handsome Frenchman. We find her writing a letter to her husband Bill about her experience of that day – without mention of the Frenchman, of course. Her narrative includes many common threads in American observations about Paris – the small size of her very expensive hotel room, the propensity for the sky to cloud over at a moment’s notice, the feeling of being a “real world traveler…”

Kurlander paints the scene at the bridge so vividly that those who know Paris will be able to see it unfold as though they were watching it on television or at the cinema. The city’s role in the story is as intimate as the romantic encounter between the woman and the Frenchman. His name is Jean-Pierre. We never learn the identity of the woman.

There are eight additional stories in Tales of Storms and Other Encounters, many of which are set in Kurlander’s home town of Chicago. I enjoyed them all! As the press release about the book states, “Not everything goes as you expect it to. You may be surprised – or shocked. You won’t be bored.”

Tales of Storms and Other Encounters is available at:

Shakespeare and Company, 37 rue Bûcherie, 75005 Paris, telephone: 01.43.25.40.93

Sandmeyer’s Bookstore, 714 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL 60605, telephone:
(312) 922-2104

From the author: lawmichele [at] aol [dot] com.

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Eat, Walk, Write—A Richly-detailed Travelogue of One Man’s Adventure in Paris

Saturday, February 4th, 2012
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Eat, Walk, Write by Boyd Lemon

Many of us dream of leaving all behind and traveling to a distant land to experience first-hand another culture, to engage with its people, and to learn another language.

Boyd Lemon had precisely that goal in mind when he retired from the legal profession at the age of 69 and set off for Paris, where he planned to live for two years. He made careful plans, but when he arrived in the City of Light he quickly discovered that things did not quite work out the way he had hoped.

The account of Lemon’s experiences in Paris unfolds as a richly-detailed travelogue giving fascinating insight into how a person’s mind works when faced with decisions that must be made when things go wrong. For example, Lemon evokes our sympathy with his description of the frustration that he felt when he realized that learning French was going to be a far more daunting task than he had ever imagined. He draws us in further as he recounts how his expectation to gain fluency progressively declined and how he realized that he could still enjoy living in Paris and learn from his many experiences there without being fluent in the language.

Lemon’s penultimate chapter entitled “Final Thoughts about Paris” provides helpful insight on the financial cost of moving there for a long-term stay.

Eat, Walk, Write would have benefited from a careful review by a professional editor, as there are numerous spelling errors (both in English and French) as well as occasional inadequate transitions from one paragraph to another. However, these oversights do not reduce the enjoyment of the book.

Readers thinking of traveling to Paris, whether for a few days or for a long stay, will benefit from reading this book. On the one hand, they will be inspired by Lemon’s descriptions of the city, the restaurants that he dined in, the food that he ate, the museums that he visited, and the walks that he took. On the other, Eat, Walk, Write serves as a warning to those who think that they will learn the language rather quickly once they get there.

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J’aime Paris by Alain Ducasse

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
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There are numerous restaurant guides available for the Paris-bound traveler to consult before making that dream trip to the City of Light, but the one that I have found that best describes the city’s culinary scene is the soon-to-be-published J’aime Paris: Mon Paris du goût en 200 adresses, by Alain Ducasse (April 2011, Alain Ducasse Edition).

J’aime Paris is a heavy book, weighing in at 4 lbs! It contains 596 pages, and is illustrated with sumptuous black-and-white and color photographs. Co-written with Frédérick E. Grasser Hermé, it is a lively account in words and pictures of some 230 establishments in Paris. While most of the places described are restaurants, the authors also include numerous marketplaces, kitchenware shops, specialty food shops, bars, bakeries, pastry shops, cheese shops, butcher shops, cafés, and more. The book is a veritable treasure-trove of information on the vast and varied world of gastronomy for which Paris is famous.

Although the brief accounts of each establishment are written in French, in my opinion, an understanding of the language is not necessary to enjoy and to learn from the book. It is amply illustrated with hundreds of photographs. The images by themselves effectively convey the passion that motivates Parisian restaurant and food shop owners, and the rich culture and traditions of the French gastronomic experience.

J’aime Paris by Alain Ducasse
Alain Ducasse Edition
Photographer: Pierre Monetta
Appears in bookshops in April 2011 – 35 €

A full review of J’aime Paris is available to the subscribers of our monthly newsletter Paris Insights.

Access to the newsletter is by paid subscription. Click here to view the announcement of the newsletter that features the book review. Click here to enter a subscription.

Bonne lecture!

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