Thrust into the unlikely role of professional "literary walking tour" guide, an expat in Paris provides the most irresistibly witty and revealing tour of the city in years.In this enchanting Paris memoir, acclaimed author and long-time resident John Baxter remembers his yearlong experience of giving "literary walking tours" through the city. Baxter sets off with unsuspecting tourists in tow on the trail of Paris's legendary artists and writers of the past. This love letter to Frenc...

A preeminent writer on Paris, John Baxter brilliantly brings to life one of the most dramatic and fascinating periods in the city’s history.From 1914 through 1918 the terrifying sounds of World War I could be heard from inside the French capital. For four years, Paris lived under constant threat of destruction. And yet in its darkest hour, the City of Light blazed more brightly than ever. It’s taxis shuttled troops to the front; its great railway stations received reinforcements fr...

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 ...

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...

Discover one of the world's most fascinating and beautiful cities through 30 dramatic true stories spanning the rich history of Paris. John Baxter takes readers through 2,000 years of French history with tales of the kings, queens, saints, and sinners who shaped the city. Essays explore the major historic events from the martyrdom of Saint Denis near today's Abbesses Métro station to the epic romances of Heloise and Abelard, Josephine and Napoleon, and George Sand and Frédéric Chopin. Lear...

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...

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...

In the third portrait of his series Great Parisian Neighborhoods, award-winning raconteur John Baxter takes readers on a dazzling excursion of Montparnasse.By the IACP Award-winning author of the national bestseller The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, MONTPARNASSE reveals the history and present delights of the iconic neighborhood that is best associated with the vibrant 1920-30s-era Paris—a romantic time and place evoked in Hemingway's memoir A Moveable Feast and Henry Miller's ...

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...

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...

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 ...