Paris, Paris : journey into the City of Light / David Downie ; photographs by Alison Harris.
Material type: TextPublication details: New York : Broadway Books, 2011.Edition: 1st edDescription: xiv, 303 p. : ill. ; 21 cmISBN:- 9780307886088 (pbk.)
- 0307886085 (pbk.)
- 914.4/3610484 22
Item type | Current library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Status | Notes | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Phillipsburg Free Public Library | Adult Non-Fiction | Adult Non-Fiction | 914.43610484 DOW | Available | pap.ed. | 36748002007708 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"Beautifully written and refreshingly original . . . makes us see Paris in a different light."- San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
Swapping his native San Francisco for the City of Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-way ticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of a cross-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floor walk-up garret near the Champs-Elysees to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of P re-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens and the aristocratic le Saint-Louis midstream in the Seine.
Downie wound up living in the chic Marais district, married to the Paris-born American photographer Alison Harris, an equally incurable walker and chronicler. Ten books and a quarter-century later, he still spends several hours every day rambling through Paris, and writing about the city he loves. An irreverent, witty romp featuring thirty-one short prose sketches of people, places and daily life, Paris, Paris- Journey into the City of Light ranges from the glamorous to the least-known corners and characters of the world's favorite city.
Photographs by Alison Harris.
Praise for Paris, Paris
"I loved his collection of essays and anyone who's visited Paris in the past, or plans to visit in the future, will be equally charmed as well." -David Lebovitz, author of The Sweet Life in Paris
" A quirky, personal, independent view of the city, its history and its people" -Mavis Gallant
"Gives fresh poetic insight into the city . . . a voyage into 'the bends and recesses, the jagged edges, the secret interiors' of Paris ." -Departures
Paris places -- Paris people -- Paris phenomena.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Photographs (p. xi)
- Foreword (p. xiii)
- By Way of Introduction (p. 1)
- Paris Places
- It's the Water: The Seine (p. 7)
- A Day in the Park: The Luxembourg Gardens (p. 17)
- A Lively City of the Dead: Père-Lachaise Cemetery (p. 25)
- François's Follies: Building Afresh in a Museum City (p. 34)
- Island in the Seine: Île Saint-Louis (p. 46)
- Montsouris and Buttes-Chaumont: The Art of the Faux (p. 55)
- Going Underground (p. 63)
- Place des Vosges (p. 73)
- Belly Ache: Les Halles Redux (Again) (p. 83)
- Hit the Road Jacques (p. 97)
- Paris People
- Coco Chanel (p. 111)
- Les Bouquinistes (p. 120)
- Midnight, Montmartre, and Modigliani (p. 129)
- The Boat People of the Seine (p. 139)
- Meeting Moreau (p. 148)
- The Perils of Pompidou (p. 156)
- Keepers of the Craft: Paris Artisans (p. 165)
- Dear Dead Vincent van Gogh (p. 176)
- Beaumarchais's Marais (p. 187)
- Madame X's Seduction School (p. 195)
- Paris Phenomena
- In the Spring (p. 205)
- La Ville Lumière: Paris, City of Light (p. 212)
- Of Cobbles, Bikes, and Bobos (p. 221)
- Philosophy au Lait (p. 230)
- Sidewalk Sundae: What Makes Paris Paris (p. 236)
- Vie de Chien: A Dog's Life (p. 245)
- Why the Marais Changed Its Spots (p. 256)
- Night Walking (p. 267)
- Grave Situations (p. 275)
- The Janus City, or, Why the Year 1900 Lives On (p. 283)
- Life's a Café (p. 295)
- Acknowledgments (p. 305)