No comments about Frommer's Provence and The Cote d'Azur With Your Family: From Lavender Fields to Sandy Beaches (Frommers With Your Family Series).

1 comments about The Traveler's Tree.

1. This book exceeded my expectations. If you are intrigued with the era of seafaring exploration, and in particular the colonial shenanigans of the eighteenth century West Indies, you may find this book as riveting as I did.
   Both the horrible realities of life on ships and the dream-like allure of the tropics are thoroughly treated, and the simple but compelling plot kept me turning the pages. An enjoyable read.

No comments about Culture Shock! San Francisco: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! at Your Door).

1 comments about The First Time I Saw Paris: Photographs and Memories from the City of Light.

1. Everyone likes flipping through good photography books but this one you'll have to read. Aside from superb photography, Miller captures the soul of Paris in a way pictures of monuments never can. These Parisians look right into your soul -- and vice versa -- even before you read Miller's commentary. If you love Paris (particularly pre-McDonald's) you have to check out this book. Plus there's Miller's own poignant, amusing, self-revelatory look at an American GI in the postwar City of Light. Life is really about people, not monuments, and Paris is no exception.

1 comments about An American in Paris: UN Americain a Paris.

1. 
   Nietzsche once said, "As an artist a man has no home in Europe save in Paris." An early daguerreotype, "Paris Boulevard" by L. J. M. Daguerre himself offers a view of Paris down to the smallest detail. Toulouse-Lautrec, who was ostracized and became a habitue of Parisian night life, presented a cast of entertainers in cafes and music halls. Pissarro's view was of a crowded square; Renoir saw Paris on a Sunday afternoon in a popular dance hall; and then contemporary artist LeRoy Neiman gave us his City of Light in a gloriously colorful collection.
   
   This folio-size visual feast holds 128 full-color illustrations, so boldly and broadly drawn that Paris springs to vibrant life. Initially seeing France some 60 years ago, Neiman was a GI with the American First Army during the Liberation of Paris. In the 60s he maintained a studio there and sketched prodigiously. Through the eyes of this contemporary Impressionist not only do we see the exultation of the Liberation and the ecstatic throngs that greeted the Americans, but we visit cafes, stroll boulevards, admire the city's haute couture, and meet some of the celebrities who live there or visit.
   
   Few places have inspired the plethora of words, music and art that the citadel of the Seine has. "An American In Paris" is a rich portrait of that incomparable city for Francophiles and all admirers of Neiman's work.
   
   - Gail Cooke

1 comments about La Vie en Rose: Living in France.

1. Looking through this book really made me feel as though I was touring the French countryside. Many of the homes are rural farmhouses or chateaus, and the pictures showcase the warmth and charm of that part of the world. Just beautiful.

2 comments about South of France: How to Find Great Wines Off the Beaten Track (Discovering Wine Country).

1. I learned a lot about the South and France and its wines from this book. The author makes you feel like you're there - and he tells you what wines are worth buying, and why. The book is beautifully illustrated too, with fabulous photographs and loads of maps with suggested wine routes. I like the fact he takes you off the beaten track and adds lots of quirky details that other guides overlook. He obviously knows his stuff. There are great recommendations about what to eat, where to eat, and where to stay, too. Highly recommended!



2. There are numerous wine areas of Southern France that are referenced and given wonderful details....Yet, the author has completely left out one of the most magnificent areas of what is definitely part of "Southern France"..... the Chateauneuf du Pape area, and almost the entire Northern and Southern Rhone region..... If he had included this area,..... he would have created a MASTERPIECE.

No comments about Eiffel Tower (Photography at the Musee D'Orsay).

2 comments about Above Paris: The Aerial Survey of Roger Henrard.

1. These gorgeous black and white images are so beautiful and vivid. These beautiful photo's shot from the fifties to the early seventies just jump off the page. You see some great Parisian buildings no longer extant, like Les Hales, or you see buildings like the Orsay train station in a state of disrepair before it was rescued and reinvented as the Orsay gallery. Paris is layed out so perfectly, it lends itself so well to arial photography. If you love Paris or appreciate amazing photography then you will want this in your collection. High recommended.



2. 
   Roger Henrard (1900-1975) was an industrialist, pilot and photographer. He flew over Paris in a single-engine plane and took thousands of pictures, many of them incredible pictures. Henrard used a high-speed plate camera to systematically document the city. This book selects 350 beautifully printed duotones from that collection organized by themes such as neighborhoods, the Seine, major buildings, the roads. Maps at the beginning of each chapter orient the reader, and Jean-Louis Cohen provides excellent captions and instructive essays, all in English.
   
   Henrad wrote UN ENRAGÉ DU CIEL ("THE FLYING MADMAN") (which has not been translated into English) describing his reconnaissance pilot experiences during World War II and why he explored Paris from the sky. Henrard was director of a factory of photographic instruments in 1930 and developed an aerial camera, which he started to use himself after learning to pilot a plane. His first flying observatory was a high-winged single-engine aircraft designed in 1932 --- a Farman 402, with a 120-horsepower Lorraine engine. Henrard called this plane an "optical and mechanical laboratory," using his own aerial camera system to take his photographs. He obtained a permanent flight permit from the Air Force and was able to devise a rigorous all-weather photography system.
   
   In 1948 he continued his flights in a Nord 1203 Norécrin (a low-winged aircraft derived from the Messerschmitt Bf 108), in which he installed the rapid cameras that he would continue to use for his aerial photography until 1972, three years prior to his death. In the preface to UN ENRAGÉ DU CIEL a wartime companion and novelist Jules Roy describes how the photographer used his "mechanical retina":
   
   "In cramped conditions and with the sun at his back, he takes his photos with all the precision of a fighter pilot performing a snap roll or a bombardier landing his crate in a vineyard. He calculates itinerary and arrival time, always picking out some makeshift airfield on which to crash should his only engine fail. Over Paris, for example, he is more or less sure of always being able to make a crash landing--on the Seine between two bridges, on lettuce and spinach plants at Gennevilliers, on the Vincennes rifle range, or on the glass roof of Gare de l'Est. And why not on the terrace of the Galeries Lafayette?"
   
   When Henrard took the photographs in this book, the city was still contained within the fortified walls built by Adolphe Thiers in 1845. Today's maps and city guides still show that asymmetric polygonal form. Henrard circled the city tirelessly, taking photographs by the thousand and surveying that classic shape and some of the encroachments of the city into the areas outside the walls.
   
   Henrard was not the first photographer to capture Paris from a flying machine. But his techniques were more rigorous and his artistic eye created great beauty while preserving cartographic accuracy. I've walked for at least 500 miles through the streets of Paris on business and pleasure trips over the years. It always seemed barricaded and crammed together from the sidewalk, brought alive from time to time with pockets of open space along the boulevards and near the Seine.
   
   This book gave me an entirely different vision of the city, and the essays made my imagination soar. This is a picture book with a brain and a soul.
   
   Robert C. Ross 2008

No comments about Gone with the Wine: Retirement Adventures in France.