Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light

Author: Downie, David

Brand: Broadway Books

Color: Multicolor

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 320

Release Date: 05-04-2011

Part Number: Illustrated

Details: Product Description


“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-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.
 

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


Review


“Like the guide who leads us through The Hermitage and its history in Sokurov’s
'Russian Ark’, David Downie is the master of educated curiosity. With him we discover Paris, a seemingly public city that is, in fact, full of secrets—great lives, lives wasted on the bizarre; forgotten artisans; lost graves (lost till now); the ‘papillons nocturnes’; and the ‘poinçonneur des Lilas’. I have walked some of the city’s streets with him, and reading this book is just as tactile an experience.”  —
Michael Ondaatje
“… beautifully written and refreshingly original…Curious and attentive to detail, Downie is appreciative yet unflinching in describing his adopted home… makes us see [Paris] in a different light….”—
David Armstrong, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
 
“The delightful and insightful essays in
Paris, Paris meld history, atmosphere and observations on Paris places, Paris people and Paris phenomena.”—
John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Chicago Tribune
 
“Downie is a saunterer, wandering down the narrow ancient streets of the Île de la Cité, picnicking in storied graveyards like Père-Lachaise, observing a seduction at Jardin du Luxembourg with a birder's patience…. captures the sort of people and places missed by those jetting from starred bistros to hotels with showers.”—
Dan Rubin, The Philadelphia Inquirer
 
“…gives fresh poetic insight into the city… a voyage into ‘the bends and recesses, the jagged edges, the secret interiors’ [of Paris].”—
Dory Kornfeld, Departures
 
“David Downie’s prose illuminates Paris with an unequaled poignancy and passion. He understands and evokes the soul and the substance of the city with a critic’s intelligence and a lover’s heart. He makes me want to live in Paris again.”—
Don George, Contributing Editor, National Geographic Traveler
 
“Perhaps the most evocative American book about Paris since
A Moveable Feast.”—
Jan Morris
 
“[A] quirky, personal, independent view of the city, its history and its people. Residents will recognize a place they can vouch for and not the clichés so frequently conjured up to match the legends. Visitors and newcomers are bound to find Paris
, Paris reliable company as they discover the city’s beauties and pleasures and its problems too.”—
Mavis Gallant
 

EAN: 9780307886088

Package Dimensions: 8.0 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches

Languages: English