France Books

This book was so helpful in finding great places to eat in Paris. We'd find ourselves in a different area of town either for lunch or dinner each day. Simply pull out the Out to Eat book and find the food or restaurant we wanted to visit. Fair warning on dress code or reservations. We didn't NEED this book, but it made the trip easier...

This book is infinitely helpful to pinpoint the perfect restaurant or bar that suits one's needs. The book is organized into arrondissements of Paris. At the beginning of each chapter, the authors list what they consider the best choices for each particular arrondissement.

If you're looking for a particular type of cuisine, one of the back indexes lists the cuisine type and all the restaurants that serve that type of food and of course, a page number where the restaurant can be found.

Another index lists all the restaurants alphabetically to compare them for the features of serving late night, outdoors, any private rooms, serving children, have wheelchair access, and if they're appropriate for business dining.

There are over 40 pages of excellent maps showing the name of the restaurant at its location.

Each individual entry gives the restaurant name, telephone number, address, page of the map where it's shown in the book, which Métro stations are closest, general prices for starter dishes, main courses, desserts, and set menus for lunch and dinner.

What makes this guide unique is that there are also ratings for the general volume of the crowd, so you can choose a quieter place or a more lively place, depending on your desires. Also, what is very valuable to us non-smokers is the restaurant's policy - smoking throughout, nonsmoking tables available, or completely non-smoking. Another fantastic feature is there is a little picture of a carrot next to the restaurants that are vegetarian friendly - a real plus!

Each entry lists the hours of operation (though these can often change, so I'd highly recommend a quick call before you have your heart set on a specific restaurant; also reservations are highly recommended at some restaurants) and a fairly detailed entry telling the specialties of the house and what the authors recommend.

The information in the book is extremely helpful for choosing restaurants and bars, and its organization makes this information easily accessible so you aren't spending time wading through large volumes to find that perfect Parisian experience.

We recently visited Paris. We armed ourselves with this book as well as a few others for cross-referencing. The LP book was dead-on for each restaurant. Although we consider ourselves very picky and privileged eaters, we were 100% satisfied with our choices. The book was invaluable not only for food but for neighborhood and bar information.

A memoir -- A gateway into the world of Lucien leads the reader through the tunnels of his mind as the horrors of the past ricochet into the present. Without sentimentality this story changes the awareness of even the most knowledgeable reader. The presnt is honed by these echoes of the past. Beautifully, albeit adroitly, written, the bones of this experience are clean, sparse and strong. We are helped to understand the unimaginable

A memoir -- A gateway into the world of Lucien leads the reader through the tunnels of his mind as the horrors of the past ricochet into the present. Without sentimentality this story changes the awareness of even the most knowledgeable reader. The present is honed by these echoes of the past. Beautifully, albeit adroitly, written, the bones of his experience are clean, sparse and strong. We are helped to understand the unimaginable

This is the story of Lucien Duckstein, an 11 year old boy in Paris who is deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with his mother because they are Jewish. It is also the story of Lucien Duckstein, a sixty year old scientist who eventually comes to deal with the experiences he underwent in Bergen-Belsen and the Drancy internment camp. He explores the price those childhood experiences exacted in his adulthood, especially in his dealings with his wife, children, family and the outside world. He acknowledges the cost of having created a persona which could survive life in the camps. His language is sparse, but eloquent and his pain is evident in the simplicity of his words. This is a short (60page), volume that is uncluttered by the irrelevant, that flows from the start and is stark and frightening in it's descriptions of what it was like to be a French Jew in Paris and later. His use of the present to play off against the past merely highlights the horrors that he experience

Stunning! Well-written story of Madame Alix Gres in four chapters: 1 life and career, 2 the grecian gown, 3 ethnic influences, 4 sculpting with fabric. Full page (> 12" x 8") photographs of selected works over her entire range of career; the photographs are high-definition. Some fashions have multiple photographs from different angles. Photographs are full page, so they are often not on the page where the text is that describes the fashion, and there is occassional lack of reference to the accompanying photograph(s) (inconsistent use of stating which plate the text is referring to). I wish every fashion and every advertisement described in the text had a photograph.

I read about the Madame Gres exhibit at the NY Fashion Institute of Technology in the New York Times recently. Upon finishing the lengthy article I raced over to my laptop and was excited to order this book. For those who love,crave and have to surround yourself with beautiful visual images this is the book for you. To look at the actual photographs of her original pieces along with her photographs made me feel privileged to read about this amazing woman. The thousands of folds,tucks and pleats in her garments were obviously a lifelong labor of love!

I only knew a little of Madame Gres and this book brought to my attention that she was one of the major designers of our era--someone who "invented" the use of draping and fabrics, unlike they had ever been used before. Not just a product of its time, Madame Gres' fashions are timeless and have influenced everything since her time. I would highly recommend this book not just for the fashion, but for the very interesting text by the author, as well, who really puts the work in context.

Nineteenth-Century America had its Henry Clay. His European counterpart was Georges-Eugene Haussmann. Emperor Napoleon hired Haussmann to make method out of the madness of post-Medieval Paris. Haussmann is principally responsible for the City of Light as we know it. "Today," the Baron's recent biographer stresses, "his hand is everywhere." Part of Haussmann's effort consisted of bringing pure water to Parisians. In the process he wiped out the cholera that was endemic to the City. Throughout life he modernized the ailing French infrastructure. Wherever he was posted, he brought in roads, canals, and rail lines. How odd it was that in a country so obsessed with pagentry and glory, Haussmann's funeral went by in a small church, virtually unnoticed.

This book helped me understand how really Paris was before Haussman did his work. I recommend this book to any person who is interested in Paris and it's history

This illustrated biography of Georges-Eugene Haussmann is a highly recommended pick for any who relish accounts of early Paris: The Man Who Made Paris Paris examines the life of an administrator who rebuilt Paris as a capitol "worthy of an empire". Vintage black and white photos of early Paris accompany a biographical coverage of the man who transformed the city in only seventeen years.

Jennifer Berne's tale of Jacques Cousteau's journey from child to young man to manfish is breathtaking and inspiring. This children's book is a lovely look at a world that's often forgotten in our busy lives - the sea and its inhabitants and the effect we have on each other.

Berne's chronicles of Cousteau's journeys, his ambition and his deep passion for life are inspirational to young and older readers alike. The sea is bigger than life, and so is this book's message: dream big and follow those dreams. Cousteau gives us all a little hope that perhaps changing the world isn't really all that hard.

I recommend getting this book for anyone in your life who loves and respects the sea and its life - or anyone who appreciate life at all. The illustrations and the poetic tale are unforgettable.

The story of Jacque Cousteau's developing fascination with the sea and it's inhabitants is beautifully told and illustrated in this volume for children. . The ocean's wonder is brought vividly to life, as is Cousteau's message that we need to take responsibility to sustain the life that dwells within it.

A beautifully written and illustrated book about a boy who grew up to be one of the world's most ardent conservationists. Both children and adults will appreciate and hopefully heed the important message woven into this charming story. The unusual perspective of the illustrations and the surprise foldout plunge you even deeper into a watery world. This is a book to give to anyone who loves the ocean and the earth.

This is probably one of the best books that I have ever read. Because it was based on a true story, it haunted me for months after reading it. This is one that I will definitely reread some time in the future.

A Story of Survival is definitely a must read. I read this
book of almost 400 hundred pages in a span of a couple of
nights. I could not put it down. I was totally unaware of
this historical fact. I found the soiled paperback book on sale
at the library for ten cents. I am surprised that we were
taught nothing about this in school. I cannot relate how I
really fell about this book.

Elizabeth Boyer's superb historical novel is based on an actual survivor's story. Marguerite and her elderly nurse are left to die on a island off the coast of Canada. Her guardian announces that she had disgraced him and is no longer a virgin. No one appeals her unjust sentence on trumped up charges. The young man who had hoped to marry her shares her exile. Together the three people, none of them trained in farming or house building struggle to erect shelter, and plant crops before winter comes. Thye must survive the harsh deadly cold. Boyer makes you feel the brutal cold, the heavy snows, the despair that sometimes afflicts the isolated trio. "Peggy's Cove" in Canada is a tourist attraction today- a testament to the courage of Marguerite, her Hugueneot suitor, their love and courage. Both Marguerite and her husband are French Huguenots who marry themselves from the Bible. (apparently this was a custom at the time when French Protestants faced persecution from the King and Catholic church). It is a story of ma,n/woman against nature, the against the absolutist corrupt royalist system, against depression. Boyer's book celebrate human courage, integrity, and love. This is the finest historical novel I have ever read. Elizabeth Boyer also authored the book A Colony of One that attempts to unravel Marguerite's identity. Conspiracy, records destroyed by her uncle made this a fascinating exercise in detection

Currently the amazon detail page for this 28 page product lists the Ignatius Press itself as the author, yet their website lists a Frances Johnson as author, the cover image here being to blurry to see. Therefore I have submitted a request for product update to list the author as listed by the publisher.*

Nevertheless, as the publisher's own product description page mentions in detail the RSV's translation of Saint Luke and of Saint Matthew as source of the text, and three other artists as illustrators, perhaps Ms. Johnson's role might better be described as editor or compiler. Here in part is the publisher's presentation of the pictures's provenance:

"Gerard Horenbout, one of the illuminators of The Sforza Hours, illustrates a simple Nativity using rich reds, greens and blues; the Annunciation to the Shepherds, depicted by the Master of the Duke of Bedford, is marvelously detailed and surrounded by classic miniatures; the Master of the Dresden Hours, a prolific Flemish artist of the late 1400's, has strewn his Epiphany with flowers, so realistic that it seems possible to pick them off the page."

Certainly a slim selection at 28 pages but one worthwhile, despite any scholar sniffing at the exact date when the medieval age drew to a close.

For further reading along these lines please see the numerous Christmas commentaries, in particular the meditations of Charles De Foucauld in the Poor Claire's garden in Bethlehem, the Reverend Father John Dear's Mary of Nazareth: Prophet of Peace, and of course Father Leonardo Boff's new book on the Hail Mary and Our Father, etc.

*please note that our great and mighty amazon has made the corrections as requested. We must all give thanks each and every one of us for this remarkable service unimaginable just a generation ago.

I'm just writing to correct the Midwestern Book Review's review. The translation is the Revised (not "Roman") Standard Version, Catholic Edition. The RSV is the finest translation available, in my opinion. The RSV-CE Bible is available by Ignatius Press as the Ignatius Holy Bible.

If you want to see the cover of the book, go to the Ignatius Press homepage.

A Medieval Christmas illustrates words of scripture (taken verbatim from the Roman Standard Version, Catholic edition, of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke). Gorgeous medieval-style color illustrations of humans and angels illuminate the scriptural tale of the birth and early life of Jesus Christ. A Medieval Christmas is an enthusiastically recommended holiday season treasure for all ages.

I am a diehard fan of European royal history and I loved this book. It is the first part of the memoirs of a Duke who lived in France during the last years of Louis XIV and during the regency of Duc de Orleans, Louis XV's minority. He is very detailed, telling stories about all of the people at court. Lucy Norton has done a great job of leaving the interesting tidbits in and leaving out the dull, long stories on politics, treaties, etc. I am more interested in biographies and this book was just what I love, you really get to know a lot about court life during this period. This first volume deals with the reign of Louis XIV and all of the intrigues as he is 53-71 years old.

I am a diehard fan of European royal history and I loved this book. It is the first part of the memoirs of a Duke who lived in France during the last years of Louis XIV and during the regency of Duc de Orleans, Louis XV's minority. He is very detailed, telling stories about all of the people at court. Lucy Norton has done a great job of leaving the interesting tidbits in and leaving out the dull, long stories on politics, treaties, etc. I am more interested in biographies and this book was just what I love, you really get to know a lot about court life during this period. This third volume deals with the regency of the Duc d'Oreleans and the coronation of Louis XV.

The Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon is one of those rare books that compel one to pick up a pen and try their own hand at the literary caper. The easy flow of the narrative, and, as the Memoirs progress, his delightful vitriol read as if receiving a letter from a long lost friend. The very fact that Saint-Simon's everyday life revolved around the French court of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries makes it all the more fascinating for the modern reader. A word of warning - the long-winded French names and the plethora of ever changing titles can get confusing.

There would be few who could not be moved by Saint-Simon's rapturous delight at the defeat of his enemies, where his writing is at its unequalled best. However, by far the greatest strength of these Memoirs is the authors humbleness. Time and again he apologies to his reader for lengthy diversions, and for his inability to handle the material well, yet it cannot be denied that he is the greatest memoir writer to have lived, in all senses of the word. His conclusion, admiting that he can be repetitive and long winded is a tour de force, and we are allowed a knowing smile when we recollect that his pride has so often shone through elsewhere - there is nothing more pleasant to read than the work of a HUMAN author, with all the quirks and failings of our own. The translator's (Lucy Norton) footnotes are extremely helpful without being cumbersome. While the length of the three volumes will alienate many a potential reader, they are well worth any time invested in their perusal.

Raymond Aron is one of the most interesting intellectuals of this century. His writing is deeply appealing. He is not just telling the political history of the century he lived. The pages are like a wave that drifts from the right to the left inside the parties, from his childhood to poetry, passing through comunism, nazism, the wars, the fall of the ideologies, till reach the decade where the giant (USA) starts its fall - the seventies. He throws you into the political sense, into the racionality of the inteligentsias throughout Europe. It's not just about past, present and future. It's a different history. It's a guest for reason, it's a guest for the most challinging steps of man.

Simply put, Rayomd Aron's memoir is proufound and interesting. Those who want to affect society in terms of knowledge should read this book. Aron just before his death tells us what intellectual ethics is, how unconscious intellectuals can be far from mass, and why we need philosohpy to understand society. Through the entire of the book, there is a specter of Sartre who used to be Aron's "little comarade" but turned out to be his ideological enemy. In contrast to a Sartre's monstrous genius who declined a Nobel prize, Aron commits himself as a humble humanutarian. This book is a critical review of the French intellectual history.

Raymond Aron was unique among intellectuals: at once a journalist and scholar, he was a prolific writer on, and noted expert in, a huge aray of subjects from philosophy to military strategy to economics. As it turns out, his life was also fascinating: he was a classmate and best friends with Sartre before becoming his great adversary during the post war debates on Marxism, was in London for the French resistance during the war, and became a television personality late in life.

In French, Aron writes with a grace and clarity that are astonishing. Now I have finally read his memoires, one of the last things he wrote. When you compare any contemporary intellectual to him, they simply can't measure up.

The content is comprehensive, while narrating the life of Messiaen, it gives all the background of when, where, and why works were written. It makes sense for a performer, it helps a performer to really connect with the composer. Easy to read and very accurate. Highly recommended!!

Over a nearly 70-year career the French composer Olivier Messiaen gave the world a number of monumental works, usually ascribing their quality to divine inspiration. While Messiaen was one of the major composers of the 20th century, he really let little slip about his personal life or the process of composition. After his death in 1992, his widow Yvonne Loriod began to open up his archives, revealing the inner man behind the hype. MESSIAEN (Yale University Press, 2005) by Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone is the first biography to take into account Messiaen's private papers and a great number of never-before-seen photographs. It vastly expands our knowledge of Messiaen's life and work.

Hill and Simeone have really succeeded in writing an exemplary musical biography, giving equal attention to the life of the composer and the specifics of his musical output as it relates to his life. The musical details are described in terms understandable by the layman with some minimal level of musical education, and except for the composer's manuscripts used as simple illustrations, there are no score samples used. Furthermore, while even new musical biographies (e.g. Kurtz's Sofia Gubaidulina: A Biography) treat only the composer's journeys to and opinions of concert performances, Hill and Simeone give abundant space to recordings of Messiaen's music.

The new light shed on Messiaen here includes details of the creative process from the abundant notebooks he kept. We can finally see the steps towards masterpieces like "Oiseaux exotiques" or "Chronochromie". Information on the writing of "La Transfiguration" is augmented by the exhaustive correspondence between Messiaen and his exasperated patroness at the Gulbenkian Foundation. The most noteworthy of the information Hill and Simeone provide on Messiaen's personal life is the story of his first wife Claire Delbos' early breakdown and death, apparently some kind of terrible physical neural degeration instead of the usual rumour of garden-variety madness.

I've often found Messiaen's works challenging, with his monumental structures and arcane religious themes being somewhat daunting compared to the total abstraction and conciseness of other avant-garde composers. This biography by Hill and Simeone has helped me become more comfortable with Messiaen's oeuvre, and so as a musical biography I think it immensely successful.

This book is a five star joy. The authors certainly have the chops: Professor Hill is an accomplished musician whose recordings of Messiaen's piano works are top flight, and Professor Simeone previously wrote the standard bibliography of the composer's works. Their access to Messiaen's previously unavailable letters and notebooks, together with their ability to condense that material into coherent story lines, means that every chapter (there are 14) has irresistible nuggets of revelation about Messiaen's music.

One good way to judge a critical or biographical book is whether it makes you - the reader - seek out or revisit the works of the book's subject. With this book, I practically stopped reading after every chapter to play a recording of one or more of Messiaen's works, because my interest had been sparked, or re-sparked, by something I had just read.

The book focuses on the process by which Messiaen composed his works, and it is fascinating to learn about the inner workings of his particular genius. The authors essentially show that Messiaen was an astonishing omnivore, taking just about everything in his mind and heart and combining that with what he saw and heard to produce an enormous catalog of amazing music over an approximately 60 year period (circa 1930 to 1990).

Although the book is full-length and very detailed, the authors indicate in their introduction that they could not include information about, for example, the initial public reaction to each and every Messiaen composition. This is understandable, given the focus on how the music was composed.

Also understandable, given the amount of primary material (the letters and notebooks) they had at hand, is the authors' decision to limit their own inferences and opinions (although those that are included suggest that it is well worth considering the views of Hill and Simeone about most things related to Messiaen).

The book also includes hundreds of black and white reproductions of photos, ephemera, and a few bits of musical scores. These reproductions would be much better if larger, and if the later photos were in color. Of course, doing those things probably would have doubled the book's cost. On balance, it's great to have so many reproductions just as they are; they definitely liven up what might otherwise come across as a too dense mass of facts.

I read this book carefully, and did spot a couple of minor errors. Perhaps the biggest howler is the authors' suggestion (see footnote 24 at pages 157 and 393) that a book by Andre Breton about surrealism and painting that Messiaen read in 1945 was the "Second Manifesto of Surrealism." The authors missed the obvious here: the book by Breton about surrealism and painting that Messiaen read was most probably - er, um - "Le Surrealisme et la Peinture" ("Surrealism and Painting"), first published in 1928 with a new edition published in, yes, 1945.

In a book this size, presenting so much information, such errors are inevitable and don't at all mar the authors' stupendous achievement. I strongly recommend this book, particularly to those who know Messiaen's work and would enjoy learning more about how his marvelous music came to be.

Olivier Messiaen is one of my favorite composers. I have performed, studied, and listened to his music avidly ever since I "caught the bug" during college. Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone's book was fascinating to read because it gave me a more complete picture of Messiaen the man: his personal habits, his compositional methods, his day-to-day activities, etc. Messiaen himself wrote copiously about his works, but he most often passed over the sorts of details that fill the pages of this book.

As such, I would not recommend "Messiaen" to those who have only a passing curiosity in the man or his music. The authors seem to presuppose at least some familiarity with most of his compositions, and they discuss several of his self-analytical theories (e.g. modes of limited transposition, "rhythmic personnages," "color" chords) without further explication. Fortunately, Messiaen spared no detail in explaining these and other concepts in numerous treatises, prefaces to scores, and program notes.

For those who already know and love Messiaen's music, though, this book will be a goldmine full of insights. After reading it, I listened with new ears to even my least favorite among Messiaen's works, such as "Livre d'Orgue" and "Chronochromie." As a performer, I am now eager to dive into more of his organ and piano pieces. My renewed enthusiasm for Messiaen's music is a testament to the authors' successful way of assembling many and various details into a compelling narrative.

In addition to this book, I would recommend Rebecca Rischin's "For the End of Time" to those who are especially interested in the "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" and Messiaen's time in a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. Rischin tells the story of all four performers from the 1941 premiere (not just Messiaen himself) and gives a fuller picture of camp life at Stalag VIIIA than do Messiaen or Hill and Simeone. (Be forewarned, however, that her musical descriptions often come across as unsophisticated, especially in comparison with Hill and Simeone's--her book would rate at 4 stars versus their 5.)

Chances are that Hill and Simeone's "Messiaen" will reach its target audience without my help, but if you are a Messiaen fan and are still unsure whether you will enjoy this book, I cannot recommend it more highly.