Paris has done a great job in shedding light on the reclusive Garbo. It probes into her life, but is not needlessly intrusive. Endlessly fascinating.

Barry Paris' life of Greta Garbo is an extraordinary biography in many ways. First, it tells the story of one of Hollywood's most enigmatic and legendary icons without resorting to hyperbole or the sort of highblown psychobabble so many other, lesser writers would have stooped to. Second, it is meticulously researched and tells Garbo's story honestly, responsibly and thoroughly, including her mysterious days as New York's Most Famous Recluse. Finally, it delves deep into the heart of what made, and continues to make, Garbo one of the enduring figures in 20th century popular culture. Paris reveals the woman behind the dark sunglasses--and she turns out to be much more interesting than one might think. Garbo, it seems, was a woman of vast contradictions, who ultimately became the victim of both her own compulsive need for privacy and her vast emotional ambivalence. This is the biographical art at its finest, and highly recommended.

This book is fabulous - witty, well-written and containing all the must-have addresses for the best food in Paris. It's different from other restaurant guides because instead of picking an area or a price-range for your meal, you just choose the dish you feel like eating. So for example if you want some Bouillabaisse you look it up and there are four recommendations, each of which will serve up their own delicious version of the Marseillaise speciality.

The guide covers eighty different dishes, both French and International - you can find places for sushi, tacos and curry as well as for pot-au-feu, fondue and coq-au-vin. The author, Emmanuel Rubin is great not only at choosing the finest food but also the places with the best atmosphere. He devotes a section at the end of the book to a guide to restaurants with special features; restaurants with a fireplace, restaurants for kids, restaurants in nightclubs...

Gourmet Paris is definitely the best present I've received since moving to France; I've been using the guide regularly every time I feel like eating out and I've had nothing but great meals since !

I'm planning a restaurant-centered trip to Paris for next spring, and am finding this little book an invaluable tool in my research efforts. The author has laboriously evaluated dozens if not hundreds of Parisian restaurants in terms of their execution of various regional cuisines and specialties. For example, if you're looking for a restaurant that specializes in the cooking of Lyon or the Auvergne, he'll have numerous recommendations--many of them small and off the beaten path, and unremarked-on even by the Paris Zagat guide, let alone Frommer or Patricia Wells. By the same token, if you simply must try a dish of aligot, pouchouse, or tablier de sapeur--because you've read about them in Elizabeth David or Waverley Root--you'll be steered directly to them. The book is small enough to carry in one's pocket while walking around the city, and contains enough information about the recommended restaurants (opening hours, phone, other specialties) to make ad hoc planning reasonably simple. Indexes by restaurant name and arrondisement are well put together. All in all, a valuable contribution to the small body of truly useful Paris restaurant guides in English.

This is my fifth Goddard, and each maintains a freshly unique, suprising, suspensful character. The Spanish Civil War is an active character in the novel, and offers a valuable learning experience in itself. The theme of webs, connections and linkages continues from Goddard's other novels. All issues are finally resolved but not without unexpected twists and turns that make it difficult to put the book down.

The plot is well thought out. Unlike most of Goddard's books, half way through, I was sure that I fully understood what was going on and who had committed the murder. All the facts fitted my suppositions so I was a little disappointed at how easy it was to determine what was going on. Then the plot changed dramatically and all my suppositions were proved to be wrong. Red herrings galore! The final pages of the book reveal the most plausible of solutions to the scenario. As with most of RG's books, the final pages reveal a solution not thought of, but altogether too plausible. An Excellent read! Terry Hockenhull

Prior to WW I, American artists sought legitimacy through study and approval in Germany. When the US entered the war, James Europe's Army band introduced the newest African American music making to the French. The influence was enormous, and the public was captivated. When the war ended, Americans flocked to Paris. This was the time of the Harlem Renaissance, and this posthumously published volume is the first publication in recent years to show how that movement invaded France. Shack (anthropology, Univ. of California, Berkeley) discusses how within the decade Josephine Baker had arrived, as had Sidney Bechet and Alberta Hunter; how Bricktop had opened her club, attracting high society--Gloria Swanson, Charles Chaplin, Sophie Tucker, the Prince of Wales; and how that scene was interrupted by the Nazi occupation. This reviewer wishes Shack had extended his discussion to the European composers who created musical works reflecting this African American culture--Poulenc, Milhaud, Ravel. But despite this--and the fact that in minor ways the narrative reflects the author's discipline as outside music--Shack's scholarship is evidenced by the coverage of black music in Paris, the endnotes, the splendid bibliography, and the excellent index. Recommended for all music collections.

William Shack, late professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, has done a terrific job in bringing to life the Parisian jazz scene between the Great Wars. At the end of the First World War black Americans in the US Expeditionary Force, most notably James Reese Europe's Hellfighters Band, essentially introduced jazz to France and, by staying in Paris or returning thereto after demobilization, they formed the condensing nucleus of the black American jazz community that flourished in Montmartre between the Wars. Contemporary to the Harlem Renaissance in New York, the "Harlem in Montmartre" community provided black jazz musicians, entertainers, and entrepeneurs, an exciting environment, largely free from the racial bigotry and Jim Crow policies common in the US. This book goes a long way to become the standard work on the matter, describing the principal individuals, the clubs, the shows, the music, all interwoven in a lively and fluent style that helps to revive these exciting and by now long gone decades. Wonderful!

Truly thorough text and photographic record of the work of the acknowledged source of the most beautiful fashion embroidery in history. Lesage has long been known for its opulent designs but some of us spring chickens have a surprise in store, and when you open this book your jaw will truly drop. Sample pieces, appliques, closeups of detail work, fringed trims, whole garments, movie stills, accessories, and designer sketches, and all of it pure inspiration for we creative types who make fashion. For sheer invention and brilliancy of design, flip through the photos and allow them to breathe color and texture into your work. If you're a fashion junkie or student, settle into a comfy chair and read the text for an in-depth look at the history of the premier embroidery firm in the world. Despite the industrial revolution and now the information age, it's all still done by hand with simple tools, and some of the examples have numbers representing the hours of work required, which will shock the faint of heart. But if you're contemplating using feathers, beads, sequins, silk ribbon, cording, floss, bullion, fine metallic threads, jewels or rhinestomes in a new and inventive way and just need a jump-start, it's in this book. The price is well worth the images (as many as 6 on a page) and it would make a nifty coffee table book as well. The perfect use, in my eyes, would be as a gift to a young girl showing a strong interest in fashion. Let her learn from the very best. For the rest of us, it will be a flight into the same world Clara discovered in the Nutcracker: pure fantasy come true. Here we can shed ratty blue jeans as well as the stifling little navy suit, and imagine ourselves covered in dazzling ornamentation. It's enough to make one want to plan a fancy dress ball for an excuse to get dressed up!

This is the most beautiful book I own and have ever seen, and I have many of the best in the fields of fashion and textile arts. This book covers them both. If you love couture and embroidery this is the book for you. The text is interesting and the photos are first rate. A wonderful insite into the most famous embroidery house in the world! Take note, this is not a how-to book. It is about the most creative facet of couture history - embellishment. A must have for any fashion and/or embroidery enthusiast.

Although Miller's books are largely autobiographical, it is sometimes difficult to discern "Henry Miller" from "Henry Miller's world". In reading this book by Brassai, we learn some of the methods Miller used to construct his world-- thus providing a deeper understanding of the man. While this book is by no means exhaustive, it does provide a glimpse into the man. There are numerous descriptions of Henry Miller available, but to get an insider's view, it is essential to read this book written by a man who knew Miller as well as any person can know another.

This book is a must-read for Henry Miller devotees who want to understand the genesis of this great writer. Written by his close friend Brassai a fascinating story is told about Miller's down and out days in Paris during the 1930's and how his vision of writing developed. It is replete with personal anecdotes about Miller's views of Paris, his hatred (ambivalent as it was) of his homeland and his relations with the women in his life. It more than anything shows Miller as the writer refusing to sell-out by having the essence of his writing edited away by the censorius literary status quo of his day.

Get the most of your family vacation by preparing the kids for the adventures the're about to have.Viewing this series of books before we leave for vacation familurizes everyone with the sites your about to see. And once you've returned home, this book is a wonderful addition to your photo albums to keep the memories alive!

Having seen Paris first hand, I would recommend this book for any child second grade and up as a way of preparing for a trip to Paris. It details the sights in Paris at a level that they can digest. It covers not only the well-known sights such as the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the Arch du Triomphe, but also lists such attractions as the artists along the Seine and the bookstore Shakespeare and Company, which boasts the largest rare and secondhand english book selection in Europe in a charming old world setting. The illustrations are also well done.

For me, Nadja is only the second greatest book of the 20th century. Soupault's novel comes across the finish line a full length ahead, but for no discernible reason.

I've always admired this book, and it seems I go back to it almost every day, and try to peek into it. I first read it twenty years ago, and still don't feel that I know what it is about, and I don't think anybody else does either. The French criticism doesn't go into the obvious Spenglerian feeling of the title, nor does it go into detail concerning the strange murders and deaths that take place within a double love-story. As the Seine winds through Paris, so the narrator winds, with a strange and curious indifference as well as passion. This book details odd meetings with thieves, prostitutes, and the clock at the top of what is now the Musee d'Orsay (but was then a major train station). But why? The book is so strange, and yet so familiar, like walking in Paris at night, and yet more vividly observed than one would believe possible. Nothing happens in the book, and yet everything happens. This book is a freak that no one will ever understand. It just has to be experienced, like a dream that seems to have a mysterious cogency that one can never formulate into anything that can be logically understood.

-- Kirby Olson

Ce livre magistral de Soupault contient en effet tout son siècle. Publié la même annnée que Nadja de Breton (1928), il offre au surréalisme l'un de ses plus beaux textes chargé d'onirisme. La poésie urbaine s'accompagne d'une vision apocalyptique propre à Soupault et n'est pas surchargé de passages théoriques que l'on retrouve dans Nadja ou dans les textes de Breton en général. Traduit par William Carlos Williams, il garde toute sa force, toute sa vitalité notemment dans son rapport au monde et aux gens. Les personnages de la prostituée ou du bookmaker ne sont décrits ni avec complaisance ni avec sarcasmes : Soupault se contente de les faire vivre. Comme le narrateur, ces personnages puisent leur énergie dans les rues de Paris. Avec eux le lecteur renverse le vieux monde dans les formidables incendies qui ravagent les quartiers de Paris. C'est cette même énergie que l'on retrouvera l'année suivante dans le roman Le Nègre où Edgard Manning assassine dans une violence sexuelle une autre prostituée nommée Europe... Mais à ne lire les livres de soupault que dans la seule optique surréaliste, c'est passer à côté de la modernité de celui-ci. Dès le Bon Apôtre, et cela se confirme dans les romans ultérieurs, la narration joue tout son rôle et prend tout son sens. On a pu dire que ces romans préfigurent déjà les techniques qui deviendront à la mode avec le nouveau roman... Qui autre que W-C Williams aurait été plus à même de traduire ce texte essentiel mais passé depuis en france sous un silence que l'on aimerait croire admiratif ?

emmanuel

I cannot remember of a better book of photographs about Paris. This small book is a gem. Black & white pictures add to the famous artists quotes a wonderful perspective. You can also consider that these quotes add deepness and universality to the innovative approach of Paris caught by the photograph. Even if the photographs went after the writing of the quotes you could reasonably consider the quotes were made after the photographs. In short, buy this book, don't bring it with you in Paris. It would be useless. Offer it to the one you love (either a kid of a grand-ma) after you brought him or her to Paris.

Paris is a city of many moods. Mr. Kraft captures the moods of this great city with his stunning photography combined with compelling literary quotations.

This book allows you to walk the streets of Paris and see the sights through the eyes of one who obviously has a great love of the culture. The literary quotations (some very well known, others more obscure)provide an unexpected richness to Kraft's body of work.

I recommend this book to anyone who has been to Paris or hopes to one day. Even if you've never thought of visiting "The City of Light", this lovely book will have you yearning to book the next flight out.

Charles Baudelaire, in his Little Poems in Prose--at least in this translation, I may say--, speaks as if he were thrown into a wind of excitement and enthusiasm in one whirl of experience, and then, no sooner does he do so, that he is ready to move on, and experience something else.

I find thst this book is published no where else at this present time, than through the Teitan Press; Crowley has some poems in translation of Baudelaire in his Collected Works, but this present edition (Little Poems in Prose) is all in prose. Thus, it is contained no where else, as yet.

Baudelaire's Petite Poèmes en prose was published posthumously in 1869 and was later, as intended by the author, entitled Le Spleen de Paris. Baudelaire did not live long enough to bring these poems together in a single volume, but it is clear from his correspondence that the work he envisaged was both a continuation of, and a radical departure from, Les Fleurs du mal.

Some of the texts may be regarded as authentic poems in prose, while others are closer to exquisite miniature prose narratives. The setting is primarily urban, with the focus on crowds and the suffering lives they contain: a broken-down street acrobat (Le Vieux Satimbanque), a hapless street trader (Le Mauvais Vitrier), the poor staring at the wealthy in their opulent cafés (Le Vieux des pauvres), the deranged (Mademoisele Bistouri) and the derelict (Assommons les pauvres!), and, in the final text (Les Bon Chiens), the pariah dogs that scurry and scavenge through the streets of Brussels.

Not only is the subject matter of the prose poems essentially urban, but the form itself, "musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato," is said to derive from "frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections."

In its deliberate fragmentation and its merging of the lyrical with the sardonic, Le Spleen de Paris may be regarded as one of the earliest and most successful examples of a specifically urban writing, the textual equivalent of the city scenes of the Impressionists, embodying in its poetics of sudden and disorienting encounter that ambiguous "heroism of modern life" that Baudelaire celebrated in his art criticism.