This wonderful little book makes a good companion for whichever Paris guidebook you plan to carry. It not only lists many interesting Cafes to visit, but also gives interesting background information on the famous writers and other celebrities who once hung out in them. It gives you an excuse to visit parts of Paris you might not otherwise visit. Great book.

I stumbled across this little gem a few days before my wife finally dragged me to Paris in 1991. Lucky for me! Thanks to this work, we have come to love Paris, especially the Left Bank. Away from the tourist throngs, the reader can people watch and sip for literally hours reflecting upon Hemingway at the Brasserie Lipp, Picasso at the Cafe de Flore, Shirer at the Brasserie Balzar and so much more. It is truly amazing to me that these places still function just as they did 75 years ago and more. I considered myself a well educated and well traveled person, but this small volume has opened up a world that I knew about but never fully appreciated before and has made Paris one of my favorite vacation spots. To heck with the Louvre, this is what Paris is all about!

This is the first book to take to France with you (or to give to a friend who is going). The history is brief, but it goes back two centuries.

This book has been in print for many years because it is the definitive history of literary Paris for the expatriates of the 1920s and 1930s. It is now happily used as a text book in universities, but is intented as a good read for any general reader interested in Hemingway, Stein, Joyce, Pound, and company.

Hemingway fans will adore this book, but for anyone interested in literary and artistic Paris, this exceptional guidebook will also lead you to the haunts of such luminaries as James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, e. e. cummings, Sylvia Beach, Gertrude Stein and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Author Fitch includes a helpful introduction to Paris, followed by an insightful introduction to Hemingway's Paris. Seven self-guided tours contain detailed commentaries for each stop along the route. The best of the itineraries take you along the Seine, through the Latin Quarter and around the Luxemburg gardens, which are the most pleasant places to walk in Paris anyway. Even though it's easy to get lost in the maze of short and angled streets of Paris, clear, good-sized maps throughout the book keep you oriented. Nearly fifty black-and-white photographs, many of them historic, evoke the ambience of Paris in the 1920s. Photos include Sylvia Beach in her Shakespeare and Company bookstore; Scott, Zelda and Scottie Fitzgerald celebrating Christmas in their apartment on rue de Tilsitt; a wicked cartoon of James Joyce drawn by Fitzgerald in 1928; and, of course, Hemingway. A detailed index helps you find information about places and people.

After 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.

After two important introductory chapters, the seven walks take the reader or tourist to every Hemingway (and Fitzgerald) site in Paris. These walks were tried/previewed by many classes of students at the American University of Paris. Although a few details date the book, it holds up today! The walks, by the way, include wonderful quotations from many of Hemingway's novels, short stories, and his memoir of Paris. Buy the book and come to Paris!!

While I must commend the author on her exhaustive and splended research, I came away from "Appetite For Life" more disappointed than pleased. Something is missing here. We have the facts, laid out in paragraph after paragraph replete with parentheses. But where is the spirit, the elan, the brio that is Julia Child? Where is the sensual, sexy soul of the man who cherished this gawky, coltish young woman and supported her in her career? They are hinted at, but never revealed. If only Fitch had given us the complete text of even one of Paul's delightful poems to Julia, it would have helped to capture that "thing" they had for each other. I was lucky enough to read the one about her warbling voice when it was published in the New York Times Magazine and I was so hoping to read it again here. In summary, do read this book - especially if you do not already know Julia's background. But, to really know Julia, watch the PBS reruns and read her own cookbooks!

This fascinating look at a truly amazing woman is well worth the effort of slogging through what amounts to some pretty tough reading. The author seems to not only paint a thorough picture of Julia Child, "the woman", but also of the world itself as a backdrop to Julia's life. The level of detail is fascinating, but it will also put you to sleep if you are not careful. This is not a book to read in bed! The portraits of Julia as a priviledged child, Julia as a rascal of a college student, Julia as an international spy, and Julia as a young married woman, all leading up to the Julia I (thought) I knew today was wonderful. I don't know that I would re-read it anytime soon (unless I was experiencing insomnia) but I would recommend it for anybody with a strong interest in Julia Child.

Noel Riley Fitch's biography of Julia Child introduces us to a very complex, interesting and compassionate woman. What we learn in the bio is that Julia's passion for living and learning has been life long. Epstein's bitter, angry review of the book in The New Yorker magazine completely misses the point. When I want to find out about Julia's passion for food, I simply open one of her cookbooks and read it.

Granted, Anais Nin, having spent her life veiling and concealing truths, is a most difficult individual to research. This fact, however, offers no excuse for the writing style of this book. The use of the present tense serves to obscure the meaning of references to the present day. In the text, does "today," mean the year being discussed, or the year of writing? In additon, Fitch mercilessly peppers a paragraph with names, only to use an imprecise pronoun in attributing a quotation. Who was it that said that again? Random comparasions to other writers, (i.e. anne Sexton) spring up in one sentence, neither led up to nor substantiated. Bare facts are laid down side by side with purple prose and phrasal flights of fantasy.
In short, the self-consciousness, name-dropping, and obscuring of facts makes this book only slightly less obsfucating than the writing of Nin herself.

This book is a thoroughly delicious read for the Nin fan. Noel Riley Fitch's fine scholarship, deft analysis, and solid writing make vivid what is surely one of the most fascinating lives of the 20th century. As the title indicates, this books focuses on Nin's love/sex life, but it uses all available diaries and fictional works to piece together what can sometimes be a real puzzle. And, unlike the biography by Deirdre Bair, Ms. Fitch has an obvious affection, admiration, and appreciation for Nin which does not compromise the objectivity of her analysis.

The one possible problem in Fitch's analysis is that she makes the presumption that Nin was physically violated by her father. There is no doubt whatsoever that Nin was emotionally abused by the man, but Fitch is the first to suggest actual sexual molestation. Though she makes an excellent case for this possibility, her daring thesis caused a bit of an uproar amongst Nin's family and close friends who believe Fitch played fast and loose with the facts. I can understand their concern; it is a serious thing to accuse someone of such a crime. Still, Fitch's argument is so compelling that I don't believe it can be easily overlooked.

For anyone interested in understanding Anais Nin, this book posits a provocative theory while also pulling together the facts of her life.

I agree that this is not the best biography of Anais Nin. Yet, we have to realize that she is not the easiest person to write a book about. I admire Noel Riley Fitch for attempting. I love reading about Anais--she was an amazing woman. And I think she knew more about the TRUTH then we think she did. She created atmosphere and breathable relationships. This biography tells of her friends and enemies alike---her success and failures.