John Baxter's The Perfect Meal is part grand tour of France, part history of French cuisine, taking readers on a journey to discover and savor some of the world's great cultural achievements before they disappear completely.Some of the most revered and complex elements of French cuisine are in danger of disappearing as old ways of agriculture, butchering, and cooking fade and are forgotten. In this charming culinary travel memoir, John Baxter follows up his bestselling The Most Bea...

First published in 1996 and now available as an ebook. Please note that this edition does not include illustrations.Steven Spielberg dominated the cinema of the nineties. He is one of the screen's greatest enchanters, with a spellbinding capacity – and a box-office record – matched by very few.His power now exceeds that of the greatest moguls of Hollywood's golden era, and films like 'Jaws, ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'Jurassic Park' have been seen by billio...

From the bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Walk in the World comes this first book in an exciting new series of narrative “biographies” of Paris’s great neighborhoods, beginning with Saint-Germain-des-Pres—the city’s “rebel quarter,” for centuries a center of artistic, intellectual, and revolutionary activity and home to some of Paris’s most iconic cafes and shops.For many years, Saint-Germain-des-Pres has been a stronghold of sans culottes, a refuge to artists, a paradise f...

The French may not have invented love but they perfected it, and the laboratory in which they did so was Paris. James Joyce called the city "a lamp for lovers, hung in the wood of the world."From the Middle Ages, Paris has drawn those who wish to experience the limits of love – intellectual, spiritual, carnal. In Of Love and Paris, John Baxter turns the spotlight on some of them, from the medieval troubadours who seduced court ladies with flowery verse to ...

"Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour," wrote Talleyrand. That Napoleon's most gifted advisor should speak so highly of eating says much about the importance of food in French culture. From the crumbs of a madeleine dipped in tisane that inspired Marcel Proust to the vast produce market where Emile Zola set one of his finest novels, the French have celebrated the relationship between art and food. Eating Eternity offers a seductive menu of t...

In The Golden Moments of Paris, John Baxter uncovers fascinating true stories about the characters that gave Paris its "character" in the years between World War I and World War II. Explore one of the world's most beautiful and loved cities in 26 fact-filled, humorous, and dramatic stories about the famed Années Folles—the Crazy Years—at the turn of the 20th century in Paris. Learn about Gertrude Stein and her famous writers' salon, Salvador Dali and the Surrealists, the birth of ...

In the rural Australia of the fifties where John Baxter grew up, reading books was disregarded with suspicion, owning and collecting them with utter incomprehension. Despite this, by the age of eleven Baxter had 'collected' his first book - The Poems of Rupert Brooke. He'd read the volume often, but now he had to own it. This was the beginning of what would become a major collection and a lifelong obsession.His book-hunting would take him all over the world, but his first r...

The life of Hollywood’s number one movie actor, the elusive Robert De Niro, who shuns the limelight and rarely gives interviews, written by the leading film critic and biographer of Spielberg, Kubrick, Woody Allen and George Lucas.Robert De Niro is the pre-eminent Hollywood character performer of our time: film portraits like the young Don Vito Corleone in THE GODFATHER II, Jake La Motta in RAGING BULL and Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER are some of the most vivid ever put on celluloi...

The five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation reawakened a long-standing and spirited conversation between philosophic science and religious faith, a conversation which continues to have consequences on how we understand both science and faith. This book brings scholars together to reflect on the topic of the Protestant Reformation, as well as the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, the nature of science, and the unity of the Church. Five chapters in this collection represen...

Get swept up in the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera as author and filmmaker John Baxter takes readers on a whirlwind tour through the star-studded cultural history of the Côte d'Azur that's sure to delight travelers, Francophiles, and culture lovers alike.Readers will discover the dramatic lives of the legendary artists, writers, actors, and politicians who frequented the world's most luxurious resort during its golden age. In 25 vivid chapters, Baxter introduces the iconic...

An irresistible nighttime tour of Paris, past and present, by the bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Walk in the WorldEvery guidebook to Paris is crammed with sites to see during the day, but visitors are often cast adrift once the sun sets and the Louvre, Notre Dame, and other tourist attractions shut their doors. Sadly for those who have retreated into their hotel rooms, it's only when darkness falls that the City of Light shines brightest. Full of as many unexpect...

Paris is a city made for walkers. One can cross is on foot from Montmartre to Montparnasse in half a day – but why would you want to, when there are so many intriguing distractions, from cafes, restaurants and boutiques to museums, galleries, and sites associated with twenty centuries of history? In Paris on Foot, prize-winning travel author John Baxter, a thirty-five-year resident in the city, shares for the first time his favorite promenades around Paris; the hidden gems known only to so...