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The story is told with the in-your-face realism of two journalists. Yet it's full of humor and even downright silliness. Would-be soldier Enrnest Hemingway captured a German soldier and relieved him of his pants. Why? He figured no man would escape half-naked. He was right.
This isn't about troop movements, it's about real people risking their lives (and those of their families) to liberate Paris. After all, Eisenhower didn't think he had enough fuel or time to fight a mini-war for Paris. He desperately needed to push east to Germany.
So how did it all happen? Read the book, in Paris if you can, but whever you can find a good lamp. Is Paris Burning? will keep you up late at night.
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But, excluding THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (which I am not yet allowed to read)this is the only book I have come across that tells you what it is like to be there, scared.
The main character is named Nicole. She loves to dance, has average looks, and has a major crush on a boy named Jack, who in turn likes her friend Suzanne, who is sweet and has strawberry-blond hair. Being so typical, it is pretty obvious that she spends Literature class thinking about Jack the hottie instead of listening to Mrs. Litzer-Gold, a Holocaust survivor. (Note that I say Holocaust, not WW2. It is so much more than a war). But then she, along with some family and friends, gets warped back into the Holocaust. She becomes Jewish.
This is a book of sadness, of death, of fear, of friendship, of hope, of faith in God (or G-d, sorry)and of love. If you read this book you will never forget it. Please take my word for it that this book will touch you heart more than any Jacks of the real world will. Keep this book on your bedside table. Keep it for whenever you need a laugh, an adventure, or a little touch of mechalony.
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From the viewpoint of a Beatnik, Eloise In Paris and all the rest of the books about her are some of the beatest kids books I've seen!
She was one of a kind (you can see her in Funny Face) brilliant musical/vocal arranger herself, world traveler, racounter, incredible lady. I've bumper into her in Rome, Paris, London, New York, LA and was terribly saddened by her death (even though she was painfully painfully thin her whole life). She was one of the great women in the history of show biz. The Eloise books are thrilling to say the least and I continually laugh every time I pick one up even after I've gone through them 100 times. I'm ordering them once again as I left mine in London and MUST have them once again. Buddy Bregman
The illustrations in this book are fantastic and really bring Paris to life for children. I have read this book at least 100 times to my daughter, and each time I enjoy it more. My daughter now wants a champagne cork necklace just like Eloise...thanks Kay Thompson for laughs you have allowed my daughter and me to share!
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There's a key map (a city map with a numbered grid showing the page numbers of the detail maps that follow for each section of the city). And there's a complete street index.
The 29 detailed city maps are divided into two-page spreads. They're labeled with sights, Metro stops, and establishments.
The bus routes are shaded gray, and the bus numbers are printed in red alongside the streets. I spent some time in Paris and came to love commuting by bus on clear days. If you plan to try it, leave some extra time to figure it all out, it's worth the effort. You'll need more info than is provided here. A current bus map would be a big help in planning your day trips, ...
Metro stops are marked on the street maps, but the metro routes are not shown. There's a small metro map on pages 2-3, followed by some very condensed practical information for tourists. (If you need guidebook information, don't rely solely on this book, get a Michelin.)
The detail maps leave out substantial parts of the 12th, 13th, 15th, 18th and 20th arrondissements. If you want something comprehensive, though not as user-friendly, look for "Paris par Arrondissement - Plan Net" by Editions Ponchet. That guide also has detailed bus routes.
I prefer the book map format over fold-out maps, because it gives me a detailed map, but I don't have to fight with it to get it folded and back into my pocket. Ironically, I did end up folding this book to get it into my back pocket. I wish the form factor were slightly narrower.
Bon Voyage!
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I like Madeline the character a lot more than I like the books. I've found that very few writers can write wonderful verse, and I don't include Bemelmans in that august company. Some of his rhymes flow nicely together, such as the opening lines of the first book:
In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. Some of his rhymes are jarring:
and soon after Dr. Cohn came, he rushed out to the phone, and he dialed : DANton-ten-six --
'Nurse,' he said, 'it's an appendix!' Everybody had to cry --
not a single eye was dry. . . . Madeline woke up two hours
later, in a room with flowers.
Still, the story isn't bad. A brave little girl is rushed to the hospital, has her appendix out, then shows off her scar. She makes it so exciting that all the other girls want their appendix out, too. Even my daughter wanted to have an appendix scar, until I explained just what that would entail.
Kids I know like this book.
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I know Mr Gethers lives sometimes in New York does anybody know if he and Jannis are okay? I am a bit worried after this terrible,unbeliefable terror act.If anybody knows something please tell me.
Even though Gethers takes Norton along on his world travels, Norton ends up taking everyone in Gethers' circle for a ride!
If you want to read about a cat who partied with Roman Pulanski and made Harrison Ford scrub a bathtub, this is the book for you!
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Her instructions provide the rationale behind each dish, and her selections stray from the familiar French cuisine found in the myriad other cookbooks on the subject. The book has a distinctive appearance, with B&W photos displaying the cooks, restaurants, and markets rather than the food. Wells is a connoiseur of food and other social features, and her writing is mildly pretentious, but the food is accessible and the dishes come out tasty and reliable.
The book contains separate chapters for Appetizers, Salads, Breads, Vegetables, Potatoes, Pasta/Grains, Soups, Fish, Poultry, Meats, and Desserts. Its offerings are produce friendly so that it works well for vegetarians. Interesting recipes include the Aspargus Veloute, a soup made from the oft-discarded stems of the spears; Carrot Salad with Cumin and Lemon Juice; Spinach, Bacon, Tomato and Avocado Salad; Asparagus and Arugula Salad; Zucchini Stuffered with Goat Cheese and Mint; Jerusalem Artichoke Puree; Cooked Carrots with Orange and Cumin; Potatoes Anna; Penne with Mustard and Chives; Polenta Fries; and Pumpkin Soup. There are several bean dishes and polenta recipes.
The key to these seemingly simple recipes in "The Paris Cookbook" is good ingredients, a knack for combination, some fundamental traditional ideas, and a passion for excellence. For example, some of the most interesting recipes to me were for peasant cooking from Provence. There was a soup of spelt (a wheat-like grain with many healthful properties.) It was combined with barley and the green French de Puy lentils to make a Mediterranean-style meal-in-a-pot soup. The use of spelt is more common in Germany --however the Provencal use it as one would use rice, in risottos or as here, in a soup. There is also a recipe for a simple version of bouillabaise fish soup that I really want to try.
The other recipe that got me excited was for an ordinary gazpacho cold tomato soup but...with a savory mustard ice cream as a garnish. Now THERE'S an interesting idea. If you have ever had a blob of cream in a tomato-based soup, you know how nicely cream blends and smooths the flavor of the acid fruit. But to add the cream in the form of ice cream, but unsweetened and with a spicy mustard, now that is exciting! I will be making that for my next summer dinner party. I also got the idea to modify the recipe and make wasabi green tea ice cream (wasabi is the green Japanese mustard you get with sushi.) I can pair that with a cold cucumber-crab soup.
That's what I adore about this cookbook. Not only great recipes, but they are in essence, fundamental and can be adapted with your own creative ideas.
The author also includes information about each restaurant where she obtained the recipes--chef, address, notes. So if you go to Paris, you essentially have quite a good restaurant guide.
The only caveat about this cookbook is that to make any of these recipes, you must get top-quality ingredients, as they are the backbone of each dish. This means a trek to the farmer's market, to the specialty shop, the farm, your backyard garden, the dairy or mail-order as many grocery store items will just not measure up. I can tell you from experience that the quality of the ingredients is paramount to success, and grocery store cream and butter in most of the US just can't do the job. And don't get me started on the vegetables.
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Fabulous is the only word to describe this tale of lust, revenge and murder...there's even a little Nazi intrigue thrown in for good measure. Face it, most of us don't have very exciting lives, or at least they're not exciting 'round the clock. Well, not so with Sheldon's duo heroines Catherine Alexander and Noelle Page. You have the choice of identifying with either French movie star Noelle (she of the blonde hair, violet colored eyes and awe inspiring sexual technique) or spunky career gal Catherine (the sharp brunette with great legs and comebacks). Noelle is the ultimate mistress, shrewd and inscrutable, while Catherine is the ultimate wife, determined to hold her man by any means necessary.
There's always been a snag in the plot that's bothered me, though, and I've spent far too many years obsessing about it. (Do not scroll further if you haven't read the book.) Larry -- dashing, decorated pilot Larry -- meets young Noelle in WWII Paris and they have a blissful affair. When he has to ship out, he gives her money to buy a wedding dress, promising to return in a few weeks time. Needless to say, he doesn't. But if Larry had no intention of seeing Noelle again, wasn't there an easier way for him to ditch her? Raising Noelle's hopes by sending her off to buy a WEDDING DRESS makes Larry seem sadistic, when he's only supposed to be a devil-may-care type rogue. It also bugged me that when the lovers cross paths years later, Larry can't even remember luscious Noelle, or her now famous violet eyes. (The whole point about Noelle is that she's not like you or me, but unforgettable!)
Anyway, this little snafu aside, "The Other Side of Midnight" is pure, spun candy perfection. It's surprising that the 1977 movie version was so weak, because the plot is blazingly widescreen, both physically and emotionally. (The clothes, by "Mommie Dearest" costume designer Irene Sharaff, and Susan Sarandon's performance as a brisk Catherine are the best things about it.) Sarandon complained in an interview at the time that the story was only soap opera, and yet the producers were treating it as if it were Chekhov. Yes, Susie, it's soap opera...but it's the ULTIMATE soap opera, bar none! Read it and weep, then continue the spree by running to the library to check out "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" by Dominick Dunne...
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The subject of the novel is a block of flats in Paris. Perec organizes the book around the floorplan of the building: he moves from room to room, describing the furnishings and the decor. With an eye for ever-smaller details, Perec shows us how the ordinary space of an apartment teems with an almost overwhelming complexity.
As we tour the building, we begin to encounter the inhabitants, from the eccentric millionaire Bartlebooth to the master puzzlemaker Gaspard Winkler, and as Perec folds them into the narrative, he also regales us with stories from their past. He shares dozens of tales of every conceivable stripe: murder mysteries, fabulist yarns, stories of love and courtship. In this regard, Life: A User's Manual evokes Invisible Cities, another Oulipan novel, by Perec's friend and colleague Italo Calvino. In Invisible Cities, Calvino creates a series of cities that seem to contain everything in the whole world: here Perec goes one further, managing to pack the entire world down to the size of a single apartment building.
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Description: Roberts starts off with advice on how to shop Parisian style in your hometown (frequent small markets; develop relationships with purveyors), then launches into recipes for every course, which are appended with kitchen tips and trenchant tales of marketing and cooking in Paris. Assessment: During this vogue for all things Italian, Roberts clearly wants to rescue French food from its current reputation as fussy and outdated. He absolutely succeeds with this well-written collection of vigorous, straightforward recipes. The book also paints a vivid picture of Roberts' Parisian crowd, urbane professionals who happen to whip up fabulous meals in their tiny kitchens. -Erica Marcus .
To begin with, you should know that Michael Roberts moved to Paris in 1975 and earned his professional certificate from the Ecole Superieure de Cuisine Jean-Ferrandi. He lived and worked in Paris before returning to the U.S. and opening his own restaurant Trumps in Los Angeles in 1980. He has since that time returned to Paris for several extended visits. He brought his experiences of everyday life in Paris to this book that reveals how the average, working person in Paris shops for food and prepares meals at home. In his introduction to the book, you instantly recognize yourself because he explains how people in the everyday Parisian culture share virtually the same food varieties, cooking equipment, busy schedules and lack of time that people in every other metropolitan area of the world also share.
The discovery that I made is based upon an admission by the author in the opening of his book when he speaks of his youth and says 'The realization that I had learned to cook but not to nourish, that I hadn't grasped the gastronomic world of the average Parisian, disheartened me.' So, he set upon a course to correct that oversight and wrote about his experiences that revolve around one simple philosophy from which we can all profit. 'You start with fine ingredients. You cook things in a way that coaxes out the flavors. No need to complicate a recipe with many ingredients, because they only end up fighting each other. ' Let the ingredients speak to you.' He goes on to say 'The charm of a French meal lies in their insistence on quality ingredients and balanced flavor, in respecting those ingredients by not overcomplicating the cooking.' I enjoyed and wholeheartedly agree with his comments that shopping for flavorful ingredients should be a delight, not a chore; that cooking delicious meals doesn't really take very long; that the resulting enjoyment breaks up the tension of the day from which we can all benefit; that the devotion to this splendid ritual of eating well should become part of the rhythm of life; and, finally, that families who share this pattern of living will pass on the gift of memories of yesterday so that familiar flavors or aromas will 'unlock the memory of childhood, ' what most Parisians do nearly every time they sit down at the table.'
The book's 175 recipes that reflect the author's philosophies are easy to prepare and suit a variety of tastes for various courses of a meal, including soups, salads, entrees, and desserts. My copy of the book has already shown wear on its edges and stains on its most used pages which, if you will pardon the expression, speaks volumes about what I think of this book.