Paris

As one reads through the book, the authors' love and appreciation of the city is evident. In Paris Reflections, readers follow six fascinating walking tours of the city and are treated to a treasure cove of information, the obscure as well as the familiar, from important dates in Africa-American history in Paris to profiles of colorful personalities who have lived and worked in the city. Well written and easy to read, Paris Reflections, Walks Through African-American Paris is a valuable resource for both travelers and non-travelers as well.

What followed was an afternoon of sheer delight, as I rediscovered some of the incredible beauty of this area, with the added bonus of a perspective of celebrated Black Americans from a different era. While their very haunts may have changed or even be totally nonexistent, the monuments and neighborhoods themselves are still intact, to be seen just as these personalities saw them.

I applaud the authors for what must surely have been a labor of love. One pet-peeve, however, is the lack of photos of the basic points of interest encountered during the walks. But, otherwise, the discovery process as presented in this book in this most beautiful of cities is worth the price of admission alone. I enthusiastically recommend this offering!

I first travelled to Paris in 1976, then a number of times thereafter, lately last May 2001. Each time, I strive to capture the essence of this wonderful city, and aside from a few character sketches, I don't have much success. This book is everything I wanted to take back from Paris in addition to some wonderful memories.

The format is a longer-than-wide book with excellent paper. The text is accompanied by good-sized watercolors and pencilled notes. It looks as if you are holding the actual sketchbook. The colors are very true; I do watercolors myself and I can tell you that the pages look as if the washes were just laid down. The look is fresh and really, it is stunning.

If you love France, Paris, art, watercolors, travel, you will love this book. I treasure it.

2 recommendations: read Michael Ondaajte's intro (in it he mentions that he knows other writers who intentionally refrain from reading Mavis Gallant when they are writing themselves, so they don't lose confidence in themselves); read the afterward, written by the auther herself (in it she makes the wise suggestion to the reader NOT read the stories in the book back to back, but to take one's time and savor every morsal - I concur. Read this book very slowly pausing to read other stuff perhaps - you don't want to miss a word, it's that good.)

Lovers of sublime artwork in literature, read Mavis Gallant. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. I can't wait for Volume 2 to come out this fall!

From the catchy title to the theme of the book, it is A-One!

I hope Jim writes a sequel, as I would buy it in a microsecond.

It's also a very entertaining page-turner that maintains strong reader interest in the explorations - interior as well as temporal - of the likeable and savvy (but somewhat hapless) scholar-adventurer Mark Saverra. A bare description of the plot might make it sound contrived, but the seams rarely show as the tale dips & soars like a kite in the unpredictable Mediterranean breezes. A nitpicker can find some copyediting changes that the author might have made, but we can always hear the salt water lapping at the rocks & smell the pines heated in the sun in this tale of enchanting women & indelible characters who are involved in Mark's discoveries and in the search for "Agamemnon's Sword" - a priceless relic that has somehow been spirited away from an archeologist's dig - or has it? An immensely interesting read, even when we're seduced by the shadows on the cave wall.

Plato's cave is a labyrinth within a labyrinth. Mentis's protagonist, Mark Saverra, is a quiet and scholarly classics professor at a small college, who falls into a series of intrigues and counterintrigues when he sets out to clear himself from charges that he has stolen a very valuable ancient Mycenaean sword.

He shuttles back and forth between his American campus to the archaeological digs in Greece. Saverra (like the author) is of strong Greek heritage and slips easily in and out of one culture, or the other, with ease.

A note of interest is that there are a large number of references to Greek legend and mythology that serve as a kind of literary trellis upon which grow the vines of the story. One of the many sensuous females that fall into Saverra's life (and bed) is even named Helen!!

Saverra is being shadowed by both good guys and bad guys, and it's hard to tell which is which, at times. Even his closest friend, as well as the erotic lovers he meets along the way, seem to be double and even triple agents as the quest unfolds.

So that I not spoil the story, I won't go into further detail here, but will say only that, whether or not the readers of this book are scholars of the Classics, "Plato's Cave" is a fascinating read.

Saverra, of Greek heritage, is swept into a cultural confusion of his own cultural heritage, of modern Greece and ancient Greece in search of the missing artifact, and to clear his name. There are many references to the classical world that meld into the modern, and the dividing line seems to bisect his very mind.

The placid scholar finds himself enmeshed into plots, intrigues and passionate sexual liaisons with mysterious women. Any scholar of classical Greece should find this book as fascinating as it is informative.

This is a must for any food lover!

I found the book very funny (at times I was laughing so loud that my wife asked what was going on), and very easy to read. I do not hesitate to recommend this for anyone that wants an up to date look at where they should eat, and what they should see while in Paris.

The restaurant reviews were well written and in some cases extremely funny. Having been to Paris a couple of times before, I felt that Mr. Krupnick was on target, and very fair. But don't read this if you are on a diet. The more I read the hungrier I got! There was also an excellent section on French wines, as well as tips about what to see and do in each area.

As I was reading the guide, I almost felt as if I was on vacation already. We are planning a trip to France this fall, and I know that this book will accompany us on our voyage.

If you're only spending a few days it isn't a good choice - you'll only be dealing with must-sees like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame anyway. It is ideal, though, if your're staying for 2 weeks or longer, sectioning off neighborhoods of the city into chunks that are tourable in a day. This is definitely a mark-up book, begging for sights you want to see, restaurants you want to eat at, and stores you want to shop in to be highlighted or circled. The color highlighting is a useful tool, the drawings are wonderful, and the entries fun and informative - a delight to read when you're actually sitting down at the destination being described.

A good guidebook for the tourist making more than a token visit and who's willing to do a little work beforehand.