Paris
More Pages: Paris Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500

Used price: $9.95
Buy one from zShops for: $39.49
[Le Pont Traversee] One of the grandest boucheries in Paris, with the patterned marble façade and carved wood frames, has become a wonderfully ramshackle bookshop that specializes in literature of every kind. Established in 1974 by the poet Marcel Béalu, it is now run by his widow, Josée. Ceiling hooks recall the sides of beef and lamb that must once have occupied the space; now the challenge is to step lightly around tottering piles and climb the ladder past laden shelves, hoping they won't come crashing down in your search for an elusive volume of Baudelaire's poetry.
Step through doors decrepit or grand, deco or nouveau, and discover a wealth of unique, handmade treasures that would put Cartier to shame. The wine merchants, chocolatiers, toy makers, milliners, antiques shops, and lingerie makers celebrated in this charming little book define craftsmanship and good taste, and provide a sumptuous alternative to a day in line at the Louvre. --Jhana Bach

the character of paris
Beautiful book - great addresses!
Used price: $24.97

To Albania? In a Model T?
a great find, if you can find it.
Used price: $9.16

Wonderful!
Good book
Used price: $0.50
Collectible price: $14.82
Buy one from zShops for: $5.40

Hard-boiled in Cyprus
A Gritty Taste of CyprusThe Viper's Kiss is a no holds barred detective stories with a complex, shifting plot and memorable characters that will stick in your head long after you finish. Greek Private Eye Chrisostomos "Tommy" Zaras is a no-nonsense, hard-drinking, womanizing hero who makes no apologies. He is hired by a whiskey smuggler to recover a lost fortune on the island of Cyprus--a place of intense racial tension, since almost half of the island has been occupied by the Turkish Military since the mid-seventies. Criminals abound in this tale, as do beautiful, seductive woman, earnest sidekicks and meddling authorities.
WorldKrime thoroughly delivers on its promise of a unique mystery reading experience, as the age-old detective novel gets a refreshing new spin in this rich, absorbing mediteranean locale. I would highly recommend the Viper's Kiss to any mystery fan whose been waiting a long time to be surprised.

List price: $13.95 (that's 20% off!)
Used price: $2.95
Buy one from zShops for: $2.99

Insightful GuideAfter loosely following Tour Two through the Saint Germain neighborhood, my daughter Anne and I had morning coffee and pastries at the Cafe de Flore, Anne scribbling away in her journal. When I teasingly asked the waiter how Hemingway, and later the Existentialist writers who haunted the Cafe de Flore in the 40s and 50s, managed to get any writing done on the tiny, round tables barely large enough to hold a plate, he teased me back by pushing two of the tables together so I had plenty of room to pen my immortal postcards. But unless money is no object, it's too expensive to order much more than coffee at the famous Left Bank hangouts of Hemingway and his expatriate cohorts. On Rue de Buci and Rue de Abbaye in the Saint Germain neighborhood, close to Hemingway's Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots, you'll find less expensive, less pretentious cafes where you can order a great bowl of French onion soup.
Fail-proof walks, great Hemingway quotes
Used price: $12.00
Collectible price: $38.60

Nature at it's worst in the middle ages.
A WONDERFUL TRIP
List price: $24.98 (that's 60% off!)
Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word pen had two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with s sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong--"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match." As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode.
It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. The only possible reason not to read this book is if you'd rather hear the author's intrinsically funny speaking voice narrating his story. In that case, get Me Talk Pretty One Day on audio. --Tim Appelo

David Sedaris, the caustic charmer
No need to wait for a day in the futureThanks for the memories.
when only the weirdest will doI too spent my childhood in NC and had that delicious, goofy "HEY! I'VE BEEN THERE!" reaction when he mentioned places like Greensboro and the Raleigh Art Museum, and when he commented that his speech teacher thought "pen" was a two-syllable word. I am also a former student of French, a sometime participant in odd theater pieces, and blessed(?) with a remarkably peculiar family. Therefore my laughs were that much louder because of the classic "It's funny because it's true!" principle of comedy.
In the Seinfeld era of mass-produced catchphrases, I appreciate Sedaris' dry and inventive manipulation of language. Several of his turns of phrase have already wormed their way in to my daily conversation. I have begun to nurture my inner vachette. I would like to personally thank the author for writing the phrase "I was sitting at home, braiding the bristles on my whisk broom" because it is the most inexplicably hilarious image I've encountered in a long time. It's funny because it's true. Most of us are really that weird.

Used price: $10.00
Collectible price: $250.00

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...
the book was good
A Wonderful Book!
Used price: $2.50
Collectible price: $4.00
Buy one from zShops for: $3.90
Both males--human and ant--are determined to solve their separate quandaries, and Bernard Werber cleverly juxtaposes their adventures and those of their survivors. Their stories must somehow be linked, but it will be hundreds of imaginative and educational pages before we come upon the solution. Empire of the Ants was first published in France in 1991 and eventually in England in 1996 in Margaret Rocques's spryly formal translation. ("Ants are not especially well-known for their conviviality, especially when advancing in formation, armed to the antennae.") Werber has studied formic civilization for 15 years, and his observations more than pay off. We knew they were industrious little things, but why did no one ever tell us about their powers of invention, accommodation (in both senses of the word!), communication, and above all determination?
In fact, as the narrative makes increasingly clear, ants seem to have a lot more going on than the pale pink things stomping around above them, who seem doltish in comparison. Of course, as far as the creepy crawlies are concerned, humans are "so strange you could neither see nor smell them. They appeared suddenly out of the sky and everyone died." Empire of the Ants is by turns frightening and very funny. As more and more humans disappear down the cellar of 3, rue des Sybarites, we come to identify with the six-legged of the world. Werber, too, must have tired of his Homo sapiens, since the ant sections increase in length as the human ones decrease. No matter. Who would miss the perils of the young queen who tries to found her colony on a strange impervious hill--which turns out to be a tortoise--or the hilarious scene in which a spider swathes the 56th female in inescapable silk, only to be distracted first by a mayfly (they have shorter shelf lives than ants, who can be eaten slowly alive over an entire week) and then by a younger arachnid: "Her way of vibrating was the most erotic thing the male had ever felt. Tap tap taptaptap tap tap taptap. Ah, he could no longer resist her charms and ran to his beloved (a mere slip of a thing only four moults old, whereas he was already twelve). She was three times as big as he, but then he liked his females big."

Captivating and engrossingImagine the difference between a French movie about ants, and a Hollywood movie about ants. This is the French version -- meandering, doesn't follow a clear narrative, revels in the details, the humans are a bit "weird" about their motivations, and there are no world-conquering ants the size of VW bugs out to eat us.
Instead, it takes a more realistic approach -- and I think, altogether more satisfying one. By the end, I was quite spellbound by the possibilities it had raised, and cannot wait to read the sequels (which someone below said were out in French, but not translated yet).
Basically, if you're at all interested in science and how things in Nature work, you'll love this book. If not -- well, go rent the old 1954 Warner Bros. movie THEM! about world-conquering ants the size of VW Bugs.
AN ADULT ADVENTURE IN A TINY KINGDOM
engrossing, near perfect fictionThis is fiction at its best: smart, fun, imaginative but not pretentious or stuffy.

Used price: $0.99
Collectible price: $6.95
Buy one from zShops for: $7.98
Michael Allin intertwines natural history with a brutal chapter in the history of civilization, augmenting the clarity of both. This story of one docile animal contrasts sharply with those of the human profiteers, warmongers, and interlopers who ultimately decide her fate. But Zarafa's otherworldly charm also helps us to understand the intrigue that led Napoleon to bring not only his troops, but a small army of European intellectuals to study all aspects of Egyptian culture and history, in the invasion that sets up her story. --Lauran Cole Warner

Zarafa the Giraffe Gets Lost in Allin's Tales of War & GoreIt seems that very little of the book is actually devoted to telling the tale of Zarafa, and what there is about her and her journey is swathed in grisly details of warring and giraffe butcher. All this policical-historical clutter prevents the reader from reaching Zarafa except in only the barest sense. The gore of war and descriptions of heinous acts committed by those in power while on the route up to power overwhelmingly distracts from the tale. The somewhat graphic descriptions of animal slaughter at Roman fetes served no purpose. Gross.
Allin gets very wound up in the telling of the historical facts. In fact, he is so wound up in it that much of the book reads like a tangle. I had to re-read numerous paragraphs to try to make the transition from the surrounding paragraphs. There was no linear thread to guide the reader. It seemed like he just decided that a certain fact would be good at a particular point and inserted it without regard for the context of the surrounding text. It was convoluted to put it shortly.
Zarafa was apparently a beautiful, gentle creature and this could have been a magical tale. Perhaps if Allin had fictionalized the story more and added more likeable humans the story would do credit to Zarafa's legacy. I am still interested in reading the tale of Zarafa's journey -- it didn't really get told in this book.
The only part of the book which is outstanding is the design and styling of the book jacket and the binding for the volume. The book jacket is luminous, the end papers a treat. The font follows the mood. But, why the printer chose margins which necessitated numerous hyphenations on each page is a mystery. The excessive occurrence of hyphenated words distracted from the flow of the story.
An enchanting book combined with a historical backdrop
Wonderful True Tale of Giraffe's Journey Up The Nile...