Paris

Here is a book for anyone whose pulse quickens at the thought of a café terrasse at dusk or a métro sign on a crowded boulevard. The Paris that comes alive in this Literary Companion is the city that writers from Rabelais to Hemingway have observed and celebrated for the past five hundred years.

By interweaving extracts from their work with his own informative commentary Ian Littlewood offers the reader, district by district, a wonderfully evocative glimpse of the streets, squares and buildings of Paris.

Montaigne, Gibbon, Balzac, Hugo, Dickens, Thackeray, Flaubert, Zola, James, Miller, Rhys, Orwell, Simenon, Bellow are among the many writers whose work is represented here. The book also contains maps and illustrations.

Reviews:

‘A perfect book to remind one of the streets of Paris.’

Evening Standard

‘The only complaint is that it is too short.’

Spectator

‘Marvellously rich reading.’

Sunday Telegraph