39Vaugirard

If you are following France and Paris, here are a few places I like to watch to get a feeling for the culture and social movements:

Ô-Chateau, a Paris wine-tasting company (with champagne cruises on the Seine!) has a funny and pointed blog called Stuff Parisians Like. It’s modeled after StuffWhitePeopleLike.com, and has some funny and wise bits. It’s very well-written and will give you some idea of the inner workings of those French minds.

We’ve always loved following Kristin Espinasses continuing travails as she inserts herself deeper and deeper into provincial French life in her French-word-a-day blog. Using examples from her life with her husband and two kids, she tells funny and often poignant stories of her life in France, including things she loves, hates and is just plain confused by. She has also collected these columns in several books, which make good presents for the Francophile in your life. Her site has grown to include other recommended books on French history, language, and culture.

InParisNow.com, or TheParisBlog.com (not to be confused with ParisBlog.com, the unbelievably well-written musings of a thirteen year-old girl) is a group blog. More than two dozen bloggers contribute to it, most of whom are Anglophones living in Paris. Most days, there are three or four new articles. This one could keep you busy for a while. As soon as we live in Paris again, I’ll ask to join on with them.

Where else do you like to look for information about Paris?

If you happen to be in France this year for the 14th, or just have an interest in revolutions, here’s a good “revolutionary” walking tour that starts in our favorite neighborhood and ends at the Madeleine. That makes it a “bonne trotte” as the French would say, but doable in good shoes and with a good walking partner.

I’d also recommend
Seven Ages of Paris, my favorite history book on Paris.

To understand France and the French, you need to get to grips with the Revolution. As July 14 approaches, Anthony Peregrine transports us to a Paris where the tumbrils still roll.

Start your tour in Rue St André-des-Arts, which remains as narrow and dense as it was at the time of the Revolution
This year, as you will have noticed, is the 40th anniversary of 1968. You will have noticed particularly if you have been in France recently. There they have treated the riotous events of May 1968 as if they were of Earth-shattering import. Oh dear. As revolutions go, May 1968 was playtime – and so inflated with self-importance that you feel like slapping it.

So let us ignore 1968 and turn instead to the real French Revolution, the one of 1789: the one that overthrew an absolute monarchy, turned France upside down and set the template for revolutions (and totalitarianism) to come. In consuming most of its leading perpetrators, and thousands of others, the 1789 revolution was also an early indication of the disparity between abstract theory and human reality – and of the blood that most often fills the gap.

[From Paris: Back to the Bastille - Telegraph]

Here are three recent favorites from the hardcover shelves. My bias is that I like my non-fiction fictionalized. That is, I like a good story well-told. With Paris 2000 plus year old history, this is a tall order for a manageable book, but one of these stands out as one of my favorite books of 2007, and I’ll likely re-read it. It was that good.

“Paris: The Secret History” (Andrew Hussey) – I found this to be a very complete book, but a not very exciting read. I don’t know if the stories here are really that secret, but are a little more arcane then the broad sweep of history you get in “Seven Ages.” As one Amazon reviewer said,

this book reads like a minimally organized pastiche of historical snippets commonly acccessible to any grade school student researching Paris. The entire text is compsed in jejune paragraphs as if the author himself couldn’t even stay interested enough to sustain any intellectual progression of thought.

Yikes.

“The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War” (Graham Robb)

I had to pick up these two books while trying to spend a Borders gift card. We’ll throw them in our bags and keep them in the Paris apartment. I don’t see anything new in them, but they do give quick ideas for an outing

First, published by Fodors, is Around Paris with Kids: 68 Great Things to Do Together. It’s a cheerful red book chock-full of ideas including old standards like the Catacombs and the Jardin d’Acclimatation. We especially like the recommendations for kid-friendly dining nearby.

Second is City Walks with Kids: Paris Adventures on Foot. This one is a boxed set of 50 cards, each with a short walk and explanation of a neighborhood. Illustrations are distinctly kid-friendly. The descriptions themselves are likely to be too detailed and serious for kids (lots of dates and data) and not deep enough for adults. This set might be more valuable to spread out on the table to involve kids in choosing what to do for the day’s outings. The included map that situates all the included sites is worthless since it is too small to include either street names or métro stops.

I have to say I don’t really resonate with the idea of being a “Francophile,” though most of my life I have loved spending time in France, learning the language, and eating the same twenty meals over and over. Francophile sounds like a dilettante in things French, like someone who likes provencal fabrics or who prefers a glass of Sancerre to Chardonnay.

If you love French, and not just the kiss, check out The Story of French , by the authors of Sixty Million Frenchman can’t be Wrong. The Story of French is a fun read and will legitimize all the reasons you love French, despite the attacks on la langue française from all around you. It takes you back in history on how French was formed as a language, up until its continued force in the world today, despite the falling fortunes of its motherland.

But if you really want to learn what the hip kids are saying in streets of old Paree, you have to pick up Street French1 and Street French 2. These books will take you through Verlan, the French equivalent to pig latin and many many words, both vulgar and common that they don’t teach you in 11th grade.

Since I read these, they’ve also come up with Street French 3: The Best of Naughty French which appears to have all the juicy bits not included in books 1 and 2. Bon appétit!

I searched and searched for travel books to excite a two year old kid as well as inform me as to what are best things to do when we traveled. I found these, written by Sasek in 1959! With a minimum of words and a maximum of illustrations, ‘This is Paris’ captures the magic of mankind’s capital city. ‘This is Paris’ is a delightful tour of 1950s Paris from a child’s eye view. Sasek had written ‘This is Rome’ and ‘This is London,’ in 1959, but where the heck was ‘This is Tokyo,’ and ‘This is Seoul,’ for the kid of the 21st century?!@* So this is what I’m setting out to do, in 21st century format, in blogs.

“This is Paris (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is Rome (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is London (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

Well, what do you know? As I’m searching for the links, I’m founding out that during the past couple of years, the publishers of Sasek book has figured out the same thing that I have, and have extended the series, using new editors, to create books for other cities, around the world. In fact, there is now, ‘This is Hong Kong!’ and Texas, for goodness sakes! As Paul always says, we’re always about two weeks ahead of the latest trend insight from NY Times!

“This is Hong Kong (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This Is Edinburgh (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is New York (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is San Francisco (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This Is Ireland” (M. Sasek)

“This Is Texas (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

So I’ve been thinking about writing a series of ‘Let’s Go… to Paris, pour les enfants,’ to Tokyo, to Sydney, for now a couple of years now. Ever since Hadley was born seven years ago and I took her around the world, I saw a need. She was a sport, and is, an inveterate, world class traveler. She had trekked through about 17 countries by the time she was about two. By that time, she wanted a travel book, so she can figure out where she was going and what she could do. Also, she and I developed a little ritual, to provide her with photos and information to get her excited about the voyage she was about to undertake. And then, I started to get calls from friends and strangers who had heard about my travels with my baby to get tips about traveling to distant lands, with different systems, logic, with little kids. An idea was born.

Remember. Travel is not reward for living, but homework for living….

I remember taking her to get her passport photos when she was about a month old. My first business trip back after my maternity leave was to Toronto, Canada, and I had to figure out quickly, all of the tricks of traveling around the world with a little baby. Don’t forget, to get a passport for your kid the minute she/he is born. Better to do this when you can still hold and control them on your lap! And even more urgent, now post 9/11 with all of the new requirements for traveling abroad. Remember, all kids under 14 years of age must apply in person.