The Travel Blog

 “Beautifully written and refreshingly original… makes us see [Paris] in a different light.” -- San Francisco ChronicleBook 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-Elysées to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens and the aristocratic Île 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. “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

Price: $7.49  $17.49

Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he 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. 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 readers running to the kitchen once they stop laughing. The Sweet Life in Paris is a deliciously funny, offbeat, and irreverent look at the city of lights, cheese, chocolate, and other confections.

Price: $6.90  $16.90

A pocket guide to Paris art galleries, museums, theatres, art schools, art organizations and art suppliers. It also covers restaurants, markets, parks, cafes, jazz bars and general tourist information. It should be useful for artists, art specialists and general travellers. Fiona Dunlop is a Paris resident and writes as European art editor for "Artline UK" as well as freelance for overseas art magazines.

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The Manual of St-Germain-des-Prés is a “guide” to the legendary creative and intellectual playground of mid-20th-century Paris. With boundless energy and a delicious sense of humor, Boris Vian takes readers on a star-studded romp through the underground culture of jazz clubs, Left Bank cafés, surrealist and existentialist literature, and the various eccentrics and artists that made up this legendary scene. Paris in the ‘50s was an incredible place and time: With the end of the war, everything seemed possible. The list of luminaries Vian ran with, and who are captured here in previously unpublished photographs, includes Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Juliette Gréco, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Jacques Prévert, and Jean Cocteau.“Vian has been canonized by a whole generation of revolutionary young people…this fantasy of perishing purity is an affirmation of youth and innocence, laced with the biting humor of Jacques Prévert and Ionesco.” ― Newsweek

Price: $0.50  $10.50