Literary Paris: A Photographic Tour

By Nichole Robertson

"[This] lighthearted visual tour of the City of Lights highlights the various bookstores, libraries, and cafes infused with a rich literary history." —Fine Books & Collections

 


An essential addition to the library of every booklover and Francophile, this unique love letter to Paris offers an immersive photographic stroll through its literary delights, from historic bookstores to hidden cafes. Paris in Color author Nichole Robertson turns her lens onto spots both legendary and little-known, highlighting quiet moments that every booklover savors—inviting cafe scenes, comfy chairs, enticing book nooks—and the weathered charm of places steeped in centuries of literary history. Quotes by great writers such as Balzac and Colette are interspersed throughout, while a timeline and an index of featured locations round out the volume. This bijou treasure of a book will inspire every creative soul who dreams of following in the footsteps of their literary heroes.


 

Praise for Nichole Robertson's Paris in Love

 


"A beautiful ode that will leave you pining for Paris." —Lindsey Tramuta, author of The New Paris

 


"That magic feeling you get when you are falling in love with a person or place—in this case Paris!—is encapsulated in this stunning gem of a book." —Samantha Hahn, author of Well-Read Women

 


"We're smitten by Nichole Robertson's Paris in Love, which celebrates all things Parisian—especially crimson things, from raspberry tarts to scarlet mopeds, rosy begonias and glossy, berry-hued cafe chairs—in glorious photographs." —San Jose Mercury News

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781452169385

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Paris: Ville Lumière, or City of Light. The moniker elicits images of a twinkling city of illuminated lampposts, light-flooded architecture, and beacons atop a sparkling Eiffel Tower. But the city’s superficial beauty only hints at her true identity. Before the seductive lightscapes of her monuments and the romantic charm of her lamplit streets, Ville Lumière referred to the city as a locus of intellectual illumination and of enlightened people. The Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century marked a profound shift in the importance of literacy in the Western world, and Paris was at the heart of this intellectual revolution. The literary and cultural movement questioned the authority of both church and monarchy and promoted knowledge and free thinking—through discussion in literary salons, coffeehouses, and printed books. This free-thinking, skeptical attitude helped to form the new public opinion in France. For the first time, French citizens were reading more and openly questioning and analyzing the world around them.

These ideas, liberated from the closed garden walls of the church and government, spilled into the city’s open spaces and cafes. It was the public intellectuals, the philosophes of the day, and the lively communal debates that cemented Paris as a center of literary life.

Paris has a dual identity of sorts: She’s an A-list celebrity and dresses the part; but, behind the sparkle, Paris has a spectacular intellectual life. The city’s storied cafes, salons, and bookstores drew writers, artists, philosophers, and thinkers for centuries; and together these intellectuals

Reviews for Literary Paris

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The author takes photographs of various bookstores seen throughout France and other sites, interspersing them with literary quotes.

I loved the idea of this book and was hoping for some really neat literary sites of France, like places where famous authors wrote or were inspired by. There are a few of those, but the majority are just photographs of bookstore shelves taken so up close that it's virtually impossible to distinguish these as being French bookstores versus anywhere else in the world. In one of them, I actually caught a glimpse of an Archie comic.

Furthermore, nothing is captioned. There's a long list of sites at the end of the book but these are listed alphabetically, making it not the most helpful tool in the world when you're on page 82 and want to know what this building with columns is or why it is significant. A brief timeline of some literary events in France's history rounds out the backmatter.

This seems like the type of book for those folks who love the actual physical object of a book, which is a totally fine attitude to have that I think would probably be satisfied by seeing the photographs of books of all sizes, colors, bindings, etc. But if, like me, you're more concerned about the informational content of a nonfiction book, this one is very slim on that.