Paris

This book is a georgous book, from its looks (plush cover, ribbon bookmark, illustrations) to its content. It describes a slew of fictional places (and a few non-fictional) creating a surrealistic, dreamlike landscape. As nice as it is, this isn't a sit down and read sort of book, more of a coffee table type, wonderful to flip through and see what you find.

This imaginary guide to Paris is full of surreal imagination that will just make you smile. Helpfully divided up into sections on hotels, restaurants, the nightlife, sights, etc., you'll read about places and services you've never dreamed of! What a shame, they don't really exist! Peppered thoughout the text are helpful French expressions translated into English such as "Do you have a ladder so I can reach your airmail clerk suspended from the ceiling?" You can read some guest comments for the hotels which of course, are also bizarre, and learn about special services such as a kidnapping service or a food tasting service (so you don't get poisoned). The book has some quotes from real people too and the lavish artwork gives it an other worldly feel. It will transport you immediately to a wonderful alternative reality Paris.

There's a reason why this little book is subtitled "a wayward guide." The inverted Eiffel Tower on the cover should be a warning to those of faint imagination, that this book is not your father's Fodor Guide. Rather, Paris Out of Hand, is a handy guide to the hotels with fold-down balconies, volume controls on the phones for those who don't speak French, and turn-down services which leave a fish on your pillow. It is full of helpful French phrases, so you will never be caught short not knowing how to ask: "Do you come to this noctambupark often? Are the bats given annual rabies shots?" ("Venez-vous souvent a ce noctambuparc? Est-ce que les chauves-souris recoivent leurs piqures de rage annuelle?") It is loaded with delightful factoids such as: "Some Parisians don't have sheepskin covers for car seats, but drive around with live sheep in the laps. Thus 'Revenons a nos moutons!' is also the cry of the man roaming the levels of the parking structure in search of his bleating Peugeot." It's liberally illustrated with wondrous and slightly mad collages as fascinating as the prose.

If you cherish journeys of the mind, then this book is for you.

I think the title of my review wraps it all up: the eyewitness guides are a work of graphic art. Their highlight is probably the great work on the maps, both small and large scale, which are of great help as you navigate around the city looking for sights. As a tool for reaching all of the sights you want to see, I would say that the Eyewitness Guide is among the best, with its street map, neighborhood maps and Metro/subway guide. In addition to this, as another positive comment I would say that it is a great guide to take on a trip if you don't have much time and you need information presented in an easy-to-read, simple manner. The drawings and photos, and the way they are laid out, is very appealing.

The advantages stop there, however. If you really want to get to know a city, you simply need more in-depth historical and cultural information on the sights you are seeing. Most of the locations described in the Eyewitness Guide do not stretch beyond a paragraph or two, which is quite superficial in my opinion. If you really want to know about the history behind the church, monument, museum or park you have traveled so far to see, you will definitely need another guidebook to give you any kind of detail. This flaw becomes far worse when you read the sections on sights outside of the city or in the suburbs (which are many!). The descriptions become utterly superficial.

Harsh critique also for the hotel and restaurant information, which is limited to places designed for the rich and famous, or at least the very upper of the upper-middle class. The best guides give you a little info. on all styles of lodging and food, from low budget to luxury, but these guides make little effort to do so, and even the information on the laps of luxury is limited to little symbols, instead of providing descriptions like other guides do.

With this combination of characteristics, I think Eyewitness is good to take along for a short trip in which you have little time to spend seeing the city and you don't really care about getting any deep information on what you're seeing. Otherwise, keep looking for another guidebook.

I have to confess up front. I love these books. I must have a dozen. I really like the Paris book, and the one for Prague, and Stockholm, and South Africa, and .... You get all the detailed material similar to other great travel books plus you get great visuals.

On a cold day back here in the USA (or Canada) or elsewhere, have a glass of French wine and sit in a nice chair or in the garden on a warm day and read this book. For a moment you will be back in Paris. The same with the Stockholm book. You are back in a small restaurant or museum.

It is not a Michelin guide but that is okay. The photos and desicriptions and cutaway drawings are excellent and more than make up for any lack of small detail. But there is lots of detail here. The book includes the history of Paris and many details on the art, art galleries, parks, cutaway views of historical buildings, and many other things of interest. The history is summarized at the beginning of the book with historical time lines and cross referenced to the culture and political figures. A solid 400 page effort - lots of stuff to see and absorb.

It has the other things too such as maps, accomodations, transportation, and the rest. The Michelin guide has more sub-detail but this book is still the best for a visitor.

You will be pleasantly suprised with the depth and quality of this book and it makes a nice souvenir to refresh your memory.

Jack in Toronto

I have the older edition that I bought back in 2001, and it's fantastic. I used this book everywhere for my two-week trip to Paris, and more than the other three guide books I bought. The reason this book is so useful is that it doesn't describe the sites in long wordy paragraphs like the others. It's the one book I carried around everywhere. It includes tons of pictures that allow you tell quickly if you're at the right location, even if there's no sign (or if the sign is in a strange language). The pictures and illustrations make all the difference, and the layout is easy to understand. The maps are also useful and clear. The binding is also reasonably good quality, so that it hasn't fallen apart in spite of heavy use. I just loaned my friend this book, and he used it on his ten-day trip to Paris, and he also liked it. I can only imagine that this latest edition is as good or better than the one I have. If I make another trip to another place or city, I'll check what this series has to offer, first.

Hector Berlioz was one of the finest composers and writers of his day, and so when one reads "the rise and fall of a tenor," the biographical sketch of Spontini, or some of the other pieces here, one understands and sympathizes with him. The only real problem is that so much of this describes a musical world now long dead and gone, whose heros and villains no longer matter in the realm of history, so that there are some pages one skims through. But if you are musical in your blood and soul, by all means get it...."Suicide by Enthusiasm" alone will put you right in the thick of the Romantic era!!

Berlioz was a man of great ideas - his music abounds with fresh approaches to form, to orchestration, and to melody. And mostly he succeeds. It was a surprise when I first encountered this book to discover what a great writer the man was with words too - and this book is so diverse with its historical accounts, its unscrupulous critiques of the then currently popular music, its humour (don't miss the story about the piano contest), its reporting of the musical world of the time, its insights about great works (Mozart, Gluck - but also Spontini!)..... It's a sort of Decameron of music!

I have subsequently read the Memoirs and these are not to be missed either. Berlioz was an extraordinary man and so neglected in his native France.

For music lovers generally, I would also draw your attention to Jan Swafford's biography of Johannes Brahms - it is very insightful and wonderfully well written.

Two hundred years ago this week, Louis-Hector Berlioz was born. This, then, is a time for me to comment on a few of his works, some of them "favorites by acclamation" and others simply those in which I find special merit.

When Berlioz died, in April, 1869, an obituary in the Musical Times read, in part, "...there can be little doubt that he will be remembered by his able and acute contributions to musical criticism than by any of the compositions with which he hoped to revolutionize the world."

Anyone familiar with Berlioz's "Memoirs" already knows that he could write with flair, and often with a trenchant sense of humor as well. And, while no one these days takes that Musical Times obituary notice seriously, in terms of evaluating his compositional vs. his critical contributions to music, it is true that Berlioz was a significant contributor to the art of musical criticism. He lived and wrote during a time when the feuilleton (an essay often bathed in scathing wit) was the main in-print vehicle for criticism in the arts, and he was one of its most able and knowledgeable practitioners, using the medium for rendering his critical judgements on the musical matters of the day. (As a side note, credit for the feuilleton is often - but mistakenly - given to Heinrich Heine, the German poet, who wrote many such essays when in Vienna. But Heine had earlier been a friend of Berlioz's while in Paris, and it seems clear - at least to this writer - that the feuilleton migrated from Paris to Vienna, with Heine as its means of transport.)

"Soirées de l'Orchestre" (the original French title of these works) can be variously translated as "Evenings with the Orchestra" or "Evenings in the Orchestra." The latter seems more accurate and appropriate, notwithstanding the expertise of Jacques Barzun, one of a handful of true Berlioz experts working today: Berlioz - in the form of an alter ego for purposes of commenting on concert and opera performances - places himself IN the orchestra, as a participating musician in the evenings' events. He utilizes this "second party" vehicle, with some connective narrative, to tie together a number of his most famous feuilletons that "reached print" in the arts journals and newspapers of his day.

Never one to mince words, Berlioz makes clear his personal preferences of composers he knew, and either admired or despised. Of the former (including, inter alia, Beethoven, Gluck, Mozart, Spontini and Weber), his feuilletons would invariably speak to the strengths of these composers. On the other hand, of the latter (including, inter alia, Bellini, Cherubini, Donizetti and Rossini), an evening in the orchestra while performing such works provided him the opportunity to take imaginative flights of fancy as a means for writing about anything BUT the music (which he personally abhorred).

It is in these latter feuilletons that Berlioz hits his stride. And what an imaginative stride it is! Edgar Allen Poe and H. G. Wells (to name just two), had they been aware of Berlioz's writings, would well know that they had a worthy competitor in terms of his ability to write tales about the bizarre and the fantastic and, even, science fiction. But with a "gallows" humor that neither Poe nor Wells possessed. And this gallows humor, it turns out, is - at its best - screamingly hilarious. Two examples will have to suffice, lest I run over my allotted space.

Consider the Eighteenth Evening, during which a German opera (likely one by Meyerbeer) for which the pit musicians have little interest, so that a series of tales is spun amongst them, concluding with "The Piano Possessed," a sly and barely disguised dig at Felix Mendelssohn. The piano takes on a life - and even an afterlife - of its own while thirty-one pianists in a competition are required to play the Mendelssohn work, one after the other.

Better yet, consider the Twenty-Fifth Evening, arguably Berlioz's crowning achievement in the genre and titled "Euphonia, or the Musical City." This might well be called "Hector's Revenge," as he uses the feuilleton to settle a few scores with Camille Moke, a lady - and musician - to whom he had once been engaged and who had betrayed that engagement with the able assistance of her mother. The three characters, so barely disguised that Berlioz might well have used their proper names, are interwoven in a tale of intrigue and betrayal that is beyond fantastic and bordering on the morbid. Berlioz's alter ego exacts his revenge on the two women in a most poetic, if equally grotesque, way. And you'll laugh your way right through to the final word.

There is much about these Soirées that is autobiographical, and those familiar with Berlioz's life and times will likely not have much difficulty finding the autobiographical needles in the various haystacks that make up these Evenings. At the same time, the genre of the feuilleton permits Berlioz the luxury of commenting on matters musical (and otherwise) in a wholly unique way and style. And he had no shortage of style.

This is truly a "lost art"; no one seems to have been successful in duplicating Berlioz's ability to combine trenchant humor with critical commentary since his time. In modern times, only the name of Norman Lebrecht comes to mind, and he is far too buttoned down to challenge Berlioz in the genre. And more's the pity, now that we live in the time of Andrea Bocelli, Charlotte Church, Sarah Brightman, Russell Watson and - sakes alive! - Britney and JLo. I think Hector would have a field day with the likes of these.

Bon anniversaire, M. Berlioz!

I'm surprised by the glowing reviews for this book. The reproductions are of poor quality. My advice would be to buy a book published in the last ten years, no more.

Unparalleled in its breadth and scope, and unique in the quality of its sumptuous color reproductions, "Paintings In the Louvre" is THE BEST, the most lavish and comprehensive book ever published on the greatest collection of paintings in the world - in the Louvre Museum, in Paris. If you really like beautiful, fine European art, then this oversized, weighty, hard-back book is the book for you! Crisp, clear, beautiful full-color reproductions of more than 800 of the most important paintings that hang in the Louvre, this book is especially wonderful in that a good portion of this book is some of the most striking Christian art in the world....

BTW, if you visit the Louvre, you will need one entire day just to see all of the magnificent paintings (carry a MEDIUM-SMALL rucksack with food and water and take a break(s) outside - at the refreshing and beautiful huge fountains). To see all of the over 300,000 "objects d' art" at the Louvre (with 12 miles of corridors on four massive floors!), then plan on spending a minimum of one-and-a-half to two days there! Bring lots of film, and if you have an automatic zoom camera, be sure to get the relatively new special "zoom" camera film made by ...

ENJOY!

manificent pictures remind me of all the splendid collections of the louvre, whenever i hope the book.

I'm a sucker for the move-to-Paris (Provence, Tuscany, Spain, etc.) genre, with one caveat. I like the stories where the writer has actually moved to Paris or wherever, and is not just buying a summer home and expects to become a native. In other words, I liked A Year in Provence, and was not so fond of Under the Tuscan Sun.

In C'est la Vie, Suzy Gershman has indeed sold her house in the States and moved to Paris. She is newly widowed, which adds a slightly different twist to this story. Gershman tells how she managed to get an apartment and furniture, how she dealt with the French bureaucaracy without speaking much French, how she coped with losing her husband, and how she got back into the dating game. She keeps an upbeat attitude in spite of all the obstacles and becomes, as an acquaintance tells her, "almost French."

C'est la Vie has everything going for it, and yet, I feel as if I should have enjoyed it more than I did. Granted, I was not aware of Gershman's Born to Shop series of books, so I ended up skimming the frequent and detailed shopping interludes. Apparently, she is also a celebrity of sorts, so she does a bit of name-dropping. She doesn't flinch at popping for regular trips to London to have her hair and nails done, so I'm afraid we run in different economic circles.

C'est la Vie reads more like a fantasy than like a travel memoir. I guess I was expecting to identify with Gershman, but after the affair with the wealthy Count, the New Year's Eve assignation with a handsome Italian at the Ritz, the purchase of a summer home in Provence. . .

Although I did enjoy C'est la Vie, I also recommend Almost French by Sarah Turnbull. It's written by an Australian journalist who travels to Paris, falls in love with a French man, and stays. Somehow, I found her story much more real.

This book was so inspiring to me. The author, Suzy Gershman, is so brave and so witty that it makes me feel like if I gather the courage and keep a sense of humor, I can get through anything. I really loved the story and Gershman's interesting wordplay. It's funny, its sad and best of all its informative! I strongly reccomend this book to David Sedaris fans or anyone looking for a good read.

This is a personal story written by someone who feels like a close girlfriend. I highly recommend this wonderful book.

We did not find much in-depth information in this guide. I am used to Rough Guide books which give more "off the beaten path" type of information. Most of the information found in this book was available in the hotel lobby brochures. We were left hungry for more information.....

"Information nuggets... fill the pages of newest of the Alive Guide series. Authors Permenter & Bigley know their stuff. The book is jam-packed with travel
tips that include illustrated dive and snorkel sites, town and regional maps, happy hour beach bars and nightclub options.... Cayman Brac and Little Cayman
get plenty of ink as well. Tuck this in your carry-on, alongside a snorkel, mask and sunscreen." Travel Weekly

A good book to take along. The text is punchy, with lots of factoids. A good list of Websites is given. Chicago Daily News

No I do not work for the publisher, but as someone who will spend 4 months planning 14 days away. I must say if I could bring only one book, this would be it. I have used it on every trip to Paris, and have not been led wrong by it. The book touches upon almost every conceivable church, museum, square, fountain, etc. that is within the City proper. If you were to study this book for 2 weeks with a larger Michelin map of the City,(one that is entirely on one looseleaf page, you could put the book down and completely navigate around the City on your own and find everything. Yes it is that good and well thought out. The ultimate writers of the guidebook deserve 'props' for how they did the book. I like the Knopf guides in general, but this one is the best.

Some caveats:

1. The hotel and restaraunt section IN THIS BOOK, in the back is too short and dated. The first and only time I booked a hotel in the back of a Knopf guidebook was in Venice and I GOT BURNED BAD! Unless you are talking about something world renown, like the Crillon, or the Cipriani in Venice, use another guidebook! For Paris, Cheap Sleeps/Cheap Eats has never done me wrong. In fact they have been uncommonly good.

2. There are a lot of tricks for getting around the City, getting into museums, etc. You won't find them in this book, you are going to have to go to Rick Steves for that!

3. The guidebook cant tell you what is best to see in this City, although it is not the Knopf guidebooks fault. It is the fault of the City of Paris. There is so much in that City, if you step off the plane and honestly look around, your head will spin, and perhaps you will start a lifelong love affair with it, as probably millions of others have. I don't think I have ever been happier, or more content, then sitting around drinking wine and eating frites somewhere in the Latin Quarter. Enjoy yourself and relax, the way the U.S. and the world is going, you may not get back there for a long long time.

The trouble with most travel books is that if you don't have the most recent edition, the information is probably out of date. The beauty of this book on Paris is that there is information on the culture, the cuisine, the history, the art, with a small, very small section on hotels and restaurants. This is not just a great book to prepare you for your trip to Paris, this is a book for a student of the city.

If you are going to Paris, this is one of the two books that you must have as a minimum. It is gorgeous, lush, dense with illustrations. Knopf does the best job on items like flora, fauna, architecture, history, art, how the city has been seen by others, its fashion legacy, street life, medieval influence, sub-cultures, music, and so on, each topic at least a two page spread that is always satisfying to the eyes.
A guided walking tour is the standard Knopf format for revealing the city, as opposed to the Eyewitness itemized number format. The Eyewitness guide is the other half of the pair that you must have to visit Paris, each complementing the other rather than competing. This Knopf guide has some gorgeous pull out maps/pages in the middle of the book that are really great.
The Knopf weakness is in it's ability to help you plan: There is a wonderful diagram of the Catacombs, on a fold out page showing details about the fascinating sites beneath the city, with pictures of some of the bones in the Catacombs; but nowhere will the Knopf guide tell you what time it is open or when. The Eyewitness guide is much stronger in that respect, the Knopf guides are almost as good as the Eyewitness when it comes to maps, the Eyewintness being better.
The Knopf guide has 7 pages of general index plus 10 pages for listing illustrations. The Eyewitness guide has 20 pages of general index with none for illustrations, which is to say the Knopf guide is more romantic, the Eyewitness guide more practical, they are 5 star both, and you should have both.

As a parent myself I read with shock and amazement the other reviews of this so-called "joke book". Are people so short of ideas they would rather plonk their children (and in many cases, themselves) down in front of the televison and watch, for hours on end, square-eyed and slack-jawed, the antics of a yellow sea sponge? A sea sponge, for the love of God. Take them outside, and discover the real world. There's so much more to discover than some television executive's money spinning cash-cow. Give your children a chance. Avoid this like the plague.

I started watching the tv program with my children and got insteadly hooked. This is just plain 'ol don't-take-yourself-so-seriously humor. As you read, you'll find yourself laughing out loud. I bought it for my children but it's fun for grow-ups as well!

I LOVE SPONGEBOB!! He is the best! I'm going to marry him one day!!HE is one sexy sponge!Oh yeah, buy the book!

I'm eagerly looking forward to my reissued Tarot de Paris on thicker cardstock, due out in February 2004.

I like my old deck, hard to use though, without marring the finish.

Will report back when I have it!

Mari H.

Having been a tarot collector for nearly 30 years, this is among the jewels in my collection. Its soft, tranquil color scheme and striking imagery offer the beauty, contrast and symbolic depth to lead one into the richness of the inner life. Imagery for the cards is drawn from historic statuary and scenes from the Paris environs, and seamlessly assembled in photocollage fashion. The book describes salient features of the cards and explains what each one means, and is a depth-reflection of the deck (which also reads quite intuitively). Some people have found the card stock to be on the thin side, but a reissue of the deck with thicker stock is expected shortly, and will offer the same rich imagery and lovely color scheme which graces the earlier edition.

I purchased this set last fall and couldnt wait to open it. Alas, I was disappointed upon finding flimsy production of the cards and stone cold images. I set it aside an proceeded to other sets I was working with. Now several months later I picked up the beckoning blue box and felt a deep and profound connection. I visited Paris in 1987. I began reading the Tarot a year previously. I seen the "old cards" in the Louvre and loved them but my desire for the cards diminished. I wanted a definitive deck.
Now, years down the road I feel I have found that missing link. These images are nothing short of museum pieces. Yet the metaphysical scope runs deep. I did a reading for myself and felt that I found an old companion. Gone were my doubts and I knew I had a powerful tool in my grasp. The card are wonderful for meditation as well as consultation. I am planning to use them for my main public instruction. Bravo-J Philip Thomas for creating this masterwork and hopefully the next perennial favorite for many generations to come.

Obert's account of the her trip of "10,000 miles over two continents, four deserts, and the roof of the world in The Peking to Paris Motor Challenge" is both compelling and disappointing. It is compelling in that it would be hard to write about a classic car rally which goes across China, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and on to Paris without it being interesting. It is annoying in that freelance magazine writer Obert doesn't do [much] with the great material. The purpose of the rally is to recreate a 1907 race which was documented by an Italian journalist who rode with Prince Borghese. Obert cribs the interesting bits from that account, but is [doesn't add] in integrating them into her own trip. Ditto for the local history, which appears to be largely...from Lonely Planet and other basic guidebooks. Once certainly learns a great deal of interesting stuff about the rules and manners of rallying. She's good on the car stuff, but weak on the people. The vast number of contestants results in Obert's inability to really give more than a quick character sketch of any. It would have been more interesting if she'd stuck with tracking a few fellow contestants all the way through and gotten more in depth on them. Much of the book is marred by a whiny tone with respect to her driving partner, the race organizers, poor accommodations, food, and especially the wearing of a headscarf when traveling through Iran. All in all, despite Obert's claim to be a big traveler, I didn't get the feeling she really enjoyed the world she drove by, or was making much of an effort to understand it. Indeed, she revels in the rally's arrival in Italy--ah the West! And finally, her attempt to justify the huge expense of the whole undertaking--to her...self and the reader--at the very end is laughable. She...claims, "Our long drive was an act of connection," no, such events are purely about the self. She didn't hear about the rally and think. "Wow, what a great way to connect with less fortunate parts of the world," she thought (as I would) "Wow, how cool would that be to do!" This lack of honesty at the end was the final sour footnote for me to a book which would have benefited from better physical design (it's an ugly book to read), a much more rigorous editor, and a more prepared and perceptive narrator. Certainly the rally comes across as interesting, and Obert's personal achievement is quite an accomplishment, I just wish a better book had come of it.

I happened to see a British television account of this event this past summer on History International. I missed this one when it was happening probably because I was involved in my own journeys. I caught the series in the middle and this book explained in great detail what I'd missed.
I think it would be extremely difficult to make this trip even in a new vehicle much less in most of these vehicles---this event was really wacky; it would be like running your 80 year old grandfather in a marathon and taking him out every so often for knee surgery and then back in the race again. The winning team with their modified jeep certainly had the right vehicle for that trip.
This account reflects very well the problems of balancing timing and navagation needs of road racing with the sightseeing. Many of the participants had to give up on the race and go along for the ride. The portraits of the racers were well done, particularly Andy Vann and his selfless heroism along the way. He was inspiring. The disdainful winner Phil Surtees, the madman organizers, the papershuffling petty despots along the way, the rivalries among the racers, the culture divide of modern women encountering their enemies in Iran, and the burnout at the end are all here. I really enjoyed this book.

For those of us with less adventure in our souls than Genny,her story should be read with a mind to the extreme bravery displayed by both the writer and her co-driver on this epic adventure. Why do I raise the subject of bravery in a book report? Perhaps being British and therfore my inate "Britishness" (perhaps it is unfashonable to be a gentleman these days?) makes the reading of some of the report on this book from your side of the Atlantic seem a little harsh. I assumed that the content of the book was of primary importance? It seems that some fellow report writers want to concentrate on writing style and quality of punctuation rather than the text? I implore all who read this book to do so with an open mind considering the achievement of Genny and Linda in the context of travel writing, giving due credit for the superlative historic reference's to the initial running of the Peking to Paris at the turn of the 20th century. I am, and will admit to being somewhat biased in this matter. I witnessed the bravery of the writer and her co-driver fist hand. Following a high speed accident when their car hit a hidden culvert I was the medical officer who attended to Genny and Linda. They refused all but the most basic of medical intervention when lesser persons would have rolled over and quit. Not only did they display admirable bravery and foresight they also demonstrated considerable mechanical ability by repairing the damage to the car themselves! Whithout doubt, Genny is one of the most complete long distance rally competitors. It was a great honour for me to take part in the Peking to Paris as part of the support team, and a great honour to have become aquainted with such a strong and determined lady. Litrary detractors please take note and be mindful of the sacrifices travel writers make for their art.