Books on Paris

December 14th, 2017

The potential Paris-related reading list is immense.  There are the standard travel guides, of course, but also many books about food and cooking, books about fashion, books about art, books about shopping, novels set in Paris, novels written in Paris, ex-patriot memoirs, philosophical tracts, and many more.  I am a slow reader and will only make it through a handful this year, but still I already have a number to recommend.

I will start with one I just finished, a rich history of the Saint Germain des Pres neighborhood in Paris, in whose southeast corner, according to the boundaries given in the book, we live.  It is so rich in anecdotes and interesting facts about theaters, bars, shops, former residents, restaurants, streets, parks.  And of course it is of particular interest to us because we walk the very streets, enjoy the very parks, and eat at the very restaurants he describes in the book.  John Baxter has written a number of other books about other Paris neighborhoods and Paris in general.       

I mentioned before the book on the history of Paris, Seven Ages of Paris.  I would recommend it for a good, all-purpose history.  Even though it starts at the very (prehistoric) beginnings of Paris, is it not a difficult read and it is quite informative.  It provides a useful sweep of the evolution of Paris, physically and politically, over the ages.  The pre-19th century sections were heavy on political and military history, with only the occasional detail about culture and everyday life that I really enjoy.  The rich cultural details start to become more  prominent especially in the 20th century sections.  I was fascinated by his description of the Nazi takeover of Paris, collaborators and resisters in Paris during the occupation, and the repercussions of the occupation after the defeat of the Nazis.

My favorite book so far has been Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon.  It is charming, opinionated, familiar, and philosophical all at once.  His observations of life in Paris as an expat with a young family are often laugh-out-loud or read-to-your-husband funny but always with a deep insight and a refreshing self-awareness.  And his prose is beautiful.  Gopnik is a writer for The New Yorker and this book is a collection of diary entries and a few of his New Yorker essays during his five years as their Paris correspondent.  He and his family lived close to where we live, so I enjoy the descriptions of familiar places in this book at well.  

A more low-brow choice might be Paris Revealed by Stephen Clarke.  It's a dishy and saucy insider's guide to living in Paris:  fun to read, also very funny, and informative about all kinds of things, but without Gopnik's beautiful prose or philosophical insights.  I especially enjoyed his guide to the Metro, with cultural characterizations of each line and tips about the most interesting stations.  

I suppose the classic expat in Paris volume would be Hemingway's A Moveable Feast.  I had read it many years ago and reread it over the summer in preparation for our year here.  Like Gopnik's book, it is a memoir-ish collection of essays he wrote about his life in Paris, but of course it was 1920s Paris.  Again, he lived in the basic vicinity of where we live, and many of the restaurants he writes about still exist.  (I suppose they exist in no small part because he wrote about them and his disciples still travel to eat in them.)  The Paris he lived in is long gone, though, at least in our neighborhood:  divey hotels, flats without heating or plumbing, prize fights and prostitutes and gin joints.  Also, I will not be the first person to say that this was not Hemingway's best book.  All told, though, a great read.    


Finally, I'll mention All Abroad, but not to place it in the same category as the other books.  It was written by an American who moved to Paris with her husband and three children for two years.  Her children attended an unnamed bilingual school in the 15th (which we assume must be Kate's school), so her descriptions of shopping for school supplies and dealing with the school administration were useful.  She also included an excellent shopping tip:  the all-frozen foods grocery store Picard has surprisingly good quality.  The author is no Gopnik for sure, and the insights and quality of the writing are, well, nothing to write home about.  (The reviews for this book on Amazon are extremely strong, much higher than A Moveable Feast or Paris to the Moon,  for instance.  This fact just serves to reinforce my view that sample selection is everything in online reviews.)