Paris, City of Light
Explore these stories of Paris as the world converges on the city of light for the summer Olympics in 2024!
City of light, city of poison : murder, magic, and the first police chief of Paris
Tucker, Holly, author
2017
Eiffel's tower : the thrilling story behind Paris's beloved monument and the extraordinary World's Fair that introduced it
Jonnes, Jill, 1952-
2009
Presents a compelling account of the Eiffel Tower's creation and a superb portrait of Belle Epoque France. As Gustave Eiffel held court that summer atop his one-thousand-foot tower, a remarkable host of artists and personalities--Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Gauguin, Whistler, and Edison--traveled to Paris and the Exposition Universelle (1889 World's Fair) to mingle and make their mark.
Escape from Paris : a true story of love and resistance in wartime France
Harding, Stephen, 1952- author.
2019
Escape from Paris is the true story of a small group of U.S. aviators whose four B-17 Flying Fortresses were shot down over German-occupied France on a single, fateful day: July 14, 1943, Bastille Day. They were rescued by brave French civilians and taken to Paris for eventual escape out of France. In the French capital, where German troops walked on every street and Gestapo agents hid around every corner, the flyers met a brave Parisian resistance family living and working in the Hôtel des Invalides, a complex of buildings and military memorials, where Nazi officials had set up offices. Hidden in the complex the Americans, along with dozens of other downed Allied pilots and resistance operatives, hatched daring escape plots. The danger of discovery by the Nazis grew every day, as did an unlikely romance when one of the American airmen begins a star-crossed wartime romance with the twenty-two-year old daughter of the family sheltering him--a noir tale of war, courage and desperation in the shadows of the City of Light. Based on official American, French, and German documents, histories, personal memoirs, and the author's interviews with several of the story's key participants, Escape from Paris crosses the traditional lines of World War II history with tense drama of air combat over Europe, the intrigue of occupied Paris, and courageous American and Allied pilots and French resistance fighters pitted against Nazi thugs. All of this set in one of the world's most beautiful and captivating cities.
Les Parisiennes : how the women of Paris lived, loved, and died under Nazi occupation
Sebba, Anne, author
2016
"Paris in the 1940s was a place of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation, and secrets. During the occupation, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked on every corner. While Parisian men were either fighting at the front or captured and forced to work in German factories, the women of Paris were left behind where they would come face to face with the German conquerors on a daily basis, as waitresses, shop assistants, or wives and mothers, increasingly desperate to find food to feed their families as hunger became part of everyday life. When the Nazis and the puppet Vichy regime began rounding up Jews to ship east to concentration camps, the full horror of the war was brought home and the choice between collaboration and resistance became unavoidable. Sebba focuses on the role of women, many of whom faced life-and-death decisions every day. After the war ended, there would be a fierce settling of accounts between those who made peace with or, worse, helped the occupiers and those who fought the Nazis in any way they could"--Dust jacket.
The making of Paris : the story of how Paris evolved from a fishing village into the world's most beautiful city
Kelley, Russell, 1949- author.
2021
"The story of how Paris has evolved over two thousand years from a fishing village into the world's most beautiful city"-- Provided by publisher.
Mastering the art of French eating : from Paris bistros to farmhouse kitchens, lessons in food and love
Mah, Ann, author
2014
My (part-time) Paris life : how running away brought me home
Anselmo, Lisa, author.
2016
"Poignant, touching, and lively, this memoir of a woman who loses her mother and creates a new life for herself in Paris will speak to anyone who has lost a parent or reinvented themselves. Lisa Anselmo wrapped her entire life around her mother, a strong woman who was a defining force in her daughter's life--maybe too defining. When her mother dies from breast cancer, Lisa realizes she hadn't built a life of her own, and struggles to find her purpose. Who is she without her mother--and her mother's expectations? Desperate for answers, she reaches for a lifeline in the form of an apartment in Paris, refusing to play it safe for the first time. What starts out as a lurching act of survival sets Lisa on a course that reshapes her life in ways she never could have imagined. But how can you imagine a life bigger than anything you've ever known? In the vein of Eat, Pray, Love and Wild, My (Part-time) Paris Life a story is for anyone who's ever felt lost or hopeless, but still holds out hope of something more. This candid memoir explores one woman's search for peace and meaning, and how the ups and downs of expat life in Paris taught her to let go of fear, find self-worth, and create real, lasting happiness"-- Provided by publisher.
The only street in Paris : life on the Rue des Martyrs
Sciolino, Elaine, author.
2016
"Part memoir, part travelogue, part love letter to the people who live and work on a magical street in Paris. Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favorite Parisian street, offering an homage to street life and the pleasures of Parisian living. 'I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs, ' Sciolino explains, as she celebrates the neighborhood's rich history and vibrant lives. While many cities suffer from the leveling effects of globalization, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. On this street, the patron saint of France was beheaded and the Jesuits took their first vows. It was here that Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted circus acrobats, Émile Zola situated a lesbian dinner club in his novel Nana, and François Truffaut filmed scenes from The 400 Blows. Sciolino reveals the charms and idiosyncrasies of this street and its longtime residents--the Tunisian greengrocer, the husband-and-wife cheesemongers, the showman who's been running a transvestite cabaret for more than half a century, the owner of a hundred-year-old bookstore, the woman who repairs eighteenth-century mercury barometers--bringing Paris alive in all of its unique majesty. The Only Street in Paris will make readers hungry for Paris, for cheese and wine, and for the kind of street life that is all too quickly disappearing"--Provided by publisher.
Paris letters
MacLeod, Janice, author
2014
The author recounts how, after giving up her corporate job as an art director, she moved to Paris, embarked on a romance with a Frenchman who spoke no English, and found a way using her artistic and writing skills to fund her dream of staying there permanently.
Paris reborn : Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the quest to build a modern city
Kirkland, Stephane
2013
Paris under water : how the city of light survived the great flood of 1910
Jackson, Jeffrey H., 1971-
2009
Parisians : an adventure history of Paris
Robb, Graham, 1958-
2010
Napoleon Bonaparte, Marie Antoinette, Baudelaire, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Boheme, Proust, Charles de Gaulle--these and many more are Robb's cast of characters in a series of stories about the Paris you never knew
Taking Paris : the epic battle for the City of Lights
Dugard, Martin, author.
2021
"From Martin Dugard, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Killing series with Bill O'Reilly, comes the spellbinding story of the Allied liberation of Paris from the grip of the Nazis during World War II."--Provided by publisher.
A waiter in Paris : adventures in the dark heart of the city
Chisholm, Edward, author
2022
A portrait of the underbelly of contemporary Paris through the eyes of a young waiter scraping out a living in the City of Light. A waiter's job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door ... is hell. Edward Chisholm's memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you below the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world and right into its glorious underbelly. There, Chisholm inhabits a world of inhuman hours, snatched sleep, and dive bars. He scrapes by on coffee, bread, and cigarettes, often working under sadistic managers, for a wage so low he's forced to fight his colleagues for tips. And these colleagues -- thieves, narcissists, ex-Legionnaires, paperless immigrants, wannabe actors, and drug dealers -- are the closest thing he has to family. Waiting tables is physically demanding work, frequently humiliating, and incredibly competitive. But it doesn't matter because you're in Paris, the centre of the universe, and there's nowhere else you'd rather be in the world.
When Paris sizzled : the 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and their friends
McAuliffe, Mary, 1943- author
2016
Vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, when art and architecture, music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and behavior all took dramatically new forms. Through rich illustrations and evocative narrative, Mary McAuliffe brings this vibrant era to life.
When Paris went dark : the City of Light under German occupation, 1940-1944
Rosbottom, Ronald C., 1942- author.
2014