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Writers In Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light | 
 enlarge | Author: David Burke
Publisher: Counterpoint
Category: Book
List Price: $32.50
Buy New: $19.31
You Save: $13.19 (41%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 95468
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 7.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1593761570
Dewey Decimal Number: 914.43610484
EAN: 9781593761578
ASIN: 1593761570
Publication Date: April 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081010212127T
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Product Description
No city has attracted so much literary talent, launched so many illustrious careers, or produced such a wealth of enduring literature as Paris. From the 15th century through the 20th, poets, novelists, and playwrights, famed for both their work and their lives, were shaped by this enchanting locale. From natives such as Molière, Genet, and Anaïs Nin, to expats like Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, and Gertrude Stein, author David Burke follows hundreds of writers through Paris's labyrinthine streets, inviting readers on his grand tour. Unique in scope and approach, Writers in Paris crosses from Right Bank to Left and on to the Ile de la Cité as it explores the alleyways and haunts frequented by the world's most storied writers. Burke focuses not only on their writing but on their passions, ecstasies, obsessions, and betrayals. Equally appealing to Francophiles and serious readers, this engaging book includes maps and more than 100 evocative photographs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
Enormously Entertaining! August 13, 2008
David Burke's new guide is enormously entertaining. It's jam-packed full of intriguing little tales about dozens of literary giants in Paris: where they wrote, drank, loved, fought, and influenced each other. Maps and addresses throughout the book enable literature lovers to visit these haunts physically as well as imaginatively. The photos are a treat, too.
A star-studded walk --- serves up everything but cafe July 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
How many streets in the city you live are named after writers?
In Paris: more than 400.
David Burke seems to have walked them all.
And that's just for starters. He also seems to have read all the books by those writers, cross-referenced their friendships, and then figured out a clever way to summarize his knowledge in a modest 240 pages, with 125 photos along the way.
But then, David Burke --- a "60 Minutes" producer who moved to Paris for a year and simply forgot to leave --- is a lifelong reader and Francophile. As a kid in the `50s, he went to Pamplona not just for the running of the bulls, but "because that was where the climax of `The Sun Also Rises' takes place." Later, he tried to find Jean-Paul Sartre in Saint Germain-des-Prés.
Now he's divided the city he loves into three sensible zones --- the Left Bank, the Islands, and the Right Bank --- and slotted in the writers who lived and work there, working mostly chronologically, delivering the most salient stories about each. Like...
The Church of Saint-Julien-le Pauvre
It's the oldest church in town. When we're in Paris, we like to go to concerts there. I had forgotten that Ford Madox Ford took his mistress Jean Rhys there - or, in one of her novels, his alter-ego did.
39 rue Descartes
Verlaine died there. Hemingway rented the garret he'd occupied.
Rue Mouffetard
What's in a name? Mouffle means "stink", and "skinners, tanners and tripe butchers" set up shop along the river here. No surprise that young, unknown George Orwell lived here.
Deux Magots
James Baldwin was taken here directly on his arrival in Paris to meet Richard Wright.
Colette
I don't know that she got her break with her "Claudine" book three years after it was universally rejected. Then another book about schoolgirls was a hit, her husband showed her manuscript around again, et voila --- Colette had a best seller.
Hotel du Vieux Paris
They called it "the Beat hotel". Allen Ginsberg lived here. He produced 56 lines of "Kaddish", "weeping as the wrote them in Café Sélect."
Gertrude Stein's Picassos
I never knew that the Gestapo searched her apartment and decided the Picassos were "Jewish trash, good for burning." But they left them hanging.
Hours Press
And I didn't know about Nancy Cunard's poetry contest. A young writer heard about it on the last day, wrote 98 lines and stuffed them in an envelope. He won ten pounds. Samuel Beckett, aged 24. Of course.
Luxembourg Gardens
"Balzac circled the garden at night in his monk's cowl, candelabra in hand" --- another tidbit I didn't know.
Le Dome
The first big café. One night when Sinclair Lewis was boasting about one of his books on the terrase, someone shouted, "Sit down, you're just a best seller."
Rue de la Gaité
Henry Miller was "drawn to the erotic as a bear to honey." He loved the sex shops and vaudeville theatres here.
Georges Simenon
Colette advised him, "No literature. Suppress all the literature and it will go fine."
Jim Morrison
And I didn't know this: No one recognized his corpse, including "the man who came every day to keep the body packed in dry ice because of the city's heat wave."
Emile Zola
I had no idea he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The police said it was an accident. Some evidence suggests he was murdered. A tantalizing incident, briefly told, that leaves you wanting more.
Proust
And I certainly didn't know he inherited the equivalent of $6 million, giving him $180,000 or so in today's money to live on each year.
And there's so much more, much of it exhilarating. But watch out --- you'll read with a pencil, you'll mark titles and writers, and before you know it, you'll have a stack so tall you might as well have bought a plane ticket.
A treasure house of information loaded with wit and charm May 29, 2008
David Burke's Writers in Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light is simply perfect; not only does it present a treasure house of information (who knew it was Gargantua's tale that gave Paris its name?) but it's also written extremely well, with the scholarship balanced with wit and charm. I found so much in this book I had never known and timely connections between writers I had never guessed at. The joy of finding additional information about a particular writer popping up later in someone else's section gave Burke's book a rich sense of dovetailing detail. This book finally puts it all together for me, and I found great pleasure in reading it. Writers in Paris makes me exclaim: Euro be damned; I must get back to Paris!
An inexpensive but delightful literary tour of Paris May 24, 2008
This book is spectacular. It brings the writers alive in a Paris of the past but one that most travelers merely sense. The book is a must read for those who want to feel and see how Paris complimented the writers' lives. The meticulous research coupled with wonderful photos make this a pure joy to read.
I think this book would be of interest to anyone who enjoys a literary tour of Paris whether they visit the City of Light or take an armchair tour.
If You Love Paris..... May 20, 2008
Literary Paris comes alive on the pages of David Burke's new book, Writer's In Paris. A beautiful and comprehensive book about the writers who lived, loved and created in the City of Light.
David Burke navigates the Arrondissements of Paris as easily as a native Frenchman, taking us through
the haunts of the likes of Andre Gide, Proust , Jean-Paul Sartre as well as the expatriate writers who
called it home, such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F.Scott Fitzgerald and many others. Buy this
book and take it to Paris - you won't regret it!
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