City-Lit Literary Guide to Paris for Visitors

Julian Barnes, Joanne Harris, Alex Kapranos, and Other Writers

Jun 3, 2009 Mike Gerrard

city-lit books are a new kind of travel guide, showing a city through the eyes of writers new and old. The Paris title ranges from Proust and Victor Hugo to Kate Muir.

Visitors wanting a literary guide to Paris are offered a new kind of book in the city-lit series from Oxygen Books. It collects together extracts from fiction and non-fiction, from books old and new, from writers who have lived in or visited Paris over the centuries.

The usual suspects are there, yes, as it would be impossible to try to get under the skin of Paris without including something by some of its most famous writers and residents such as Marcel Proust, Victor Huge, Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, Colette, or Flaubert. But there are some refreshing inclusions too, from contemporary authors like Kate Muir, Julian Barnes, Joanne Harris and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos. There's an extract too from a newspaper article by a Paris blogger, Catherine Sanderson, who bogs under the name of Petite Anglaise.

Literary Paris: From Bloggers to Brothels

The book's editor Heather Reyes has done an excellent job trawling the bookshelves for authors and extracts that throw rays of light on the different worlds of Paris. Together they make up a vivid mosaic, from the bookshops and piano shops to areas that are less well-known to most visitors, such as the Belleville of the blogger mentioned above or the Paris brothel visited by, of all people, the children's writer Hans Christian Anderson.

Paris in Fiction and Non-Fiction

Novelists such as Julian Barnes and Adam Thorpe are included, and several authors of mystery fiction too, like Cara Black and Stella Duffy. No Georges Simenon, though, whose Maigret books are classic Paris detective fiction. Other surprising omissions are Ernest Hemingway, whose A Moveable Feast is one of the best books about life for a struggling young writer in Paris, and Emile Zola, who many people would feel was maybe even the best writer on Paris of them all.

Introduction to Literary Paris

Author Stephen Clarke provides an Introduction. Clarke's book A Year in the Merde is a very funny account of the life and times of an Englishman involved in the business world of Paris. His Introduction is equally amusing and enlightening, and worth reading for this extract alone: "It is the city's addiction to the moi-first lifestyle that has attracted writers to Paris for so many centuries. The average writer is, after all, even more egocentric than a Parisian."

Literary Guide to Paris: Essential Reading

The city-lit Paris guide is essential reading for anyone remotely interested in Paris, or planning a visit. It features the works of over 60 authors, including the voices of contemporary Parisian writers such as Abdelkader Djemai, who vividly describes the world of three immigrants who hang around the Gare du Nord. With other titles planned on cities including London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Dublin, the city-lit guides look set to be one of the most refreshing travel series for a long time.

Buying city-lit Paris

The city-lit Paris guide is published by Oxygen Books at £8.99 in the UK. Online orders have free delivery in the UK, and a postage charge of £3 per title anywhere else in the world.

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The copyright of the article City-Lit Literary Guide to Paris for Visitors in W Europe Travel is owned by Mike Gerrard. Permission to republish City-Lit Literary Guide to Paris for Visitors in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

The city-lit Literary Guide to Paris