Book Store Introduction

“Each in his own way imagines Paradise; since childhood I have envisioned it as a library.”
–Jorge Luis Borges

Not being tainted by too much formal education (wrong college major) I discovered books at the age of 8 when I began to read four a week.

Long before I first went to Paris I immersed myself in reading about her. Many of my favorites focus on Les Années Folles-the 1920’s –stamped by writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Joyce; painters and sculptors like Picasso, Brancussi, Chagall & Soutine, the Lesbian League of the Left Bank, including Sylvia Beach, Nathalie Barney, Janet Flanner and Djuna Barnes, photographers Man Ray, Gisele Freund and Berenice Abbot and African-American entertainers Sidney Bechet and Josephine Baker who found refuge from racism.

Since the launch of Paris Through Expatriate Eyes in 2001 I have enjoyed access to most of the authors writing about Paris in English. The following is a personally edited selection of classic books from my library, often accompanied by a print or video interview, that have been essential to my understanding of Paris as well as many contemporary titles that grasp the essence of France.

The Paris Bookstore