No comments about Not a Station but a Place.

3 comments about Moon Metro Paris (Moon Metro).

1. After having wonderful luck with the New York Moon Metro last year, we bough the Paris guide for our trip this year. These guides do a fabulous job of breaking down the city by neighborhoods and providing detailed street and metro maps. MM also gives astute historical summaries of these neighborhoods, so you know what to look for and what to expect. The books are small and fit in purses and jackets and have excellent recomendations for shops, restaurants and sights off the beaten tourist tracks. I have already purchased the Barcelona and Amsterdam guides and I haven't even planned trips there yet! I know they will be an invaluable reference when the time comes. I highly recommend Moon Metro.



2. Bigger letters than our regular fold out map which really helped on my night ventures but too few neighborhoods with too much overlap. Seems like the maps should cover everything intramuros.



3. I friggin' LOVE this little book! I used the maps constantly while in Paris, and I plan to take it back there one day. For now, I need to pick up one for Barcelona!

2 comments about Fodor's Paris 2007 (Fodor's Gold Guides).

1. For starters, this book gives the wrong Metro to take from Orlly airport into the city. The information person at the Metro ticket counter kept repeating "Take Metro __"(I've now forgotten which) And I kept saying, but this book says to take the other Metro. She just shook her head in knowing disgust. The book is hard to follow and the index offers little help in a rush. Unless you're willing to study and learn it before leaving home, I can't encourage you to take along this book and expect it to be more than an exasperating weight to lug around the beautiful city of Paris. And by the way, Parisians are generally helpful especially if you throw in a few Mercis and Pardons.



2. Good book, very good information. It had been helpful when I was in Paris.

4 comments about Avant-Guide Paris (Avant-Guide Paris: Insiders' Guide for Urban Adventurers).

1. I've read every kind of guidebook, from Let's Go in the 1980's to Lonely Planet in the 90's and this refreshing addition to the multitude is just the answer for the young (and not so young) adventurous traveller. The graphic design is fun and reveals a smart editor - hire a good graphic designer. The writing is witty and irreverant at times - perfect for those who seek a good experience without the hype. The maps are inadequate - but who travels with one guidebook these days anyway? That's what tourist maps are for.

   I particularily liked the photographs, certainly not your average "Gee, here we are in front of the Eifel Tower" standard fare. They capture everything you dream Paris would be: classy, cutting edge and just plain gorgeous. The writing gets to the point quickly with all the necessary facts, yet does allow for some subjectivity that I found refreshing both before our trip and during our stay.

   Buy this book if you're a repeat visitor to Paris and looking for another experience beyond the three day quickie when you have barely enough time to see the big league sites. The nightlife and eating sections are worth the price alone. Sure, we carried our Michelin Green Guide because we're architects and enjoy knowing the details, but for a cover to cover guidebook, this is the best yet.




2. I have an absolute infatuation with Paris. I travel there about once a year and now own over 40 travel guides on Paradise, err, I mean Paris. This book is my absolute favorite. Sure, the images and layout on the pages are totally hip, but more important so is the information. Anyone who's read a few travel books on Paris knows about FNAC music shop and Virgin Megastore, but through this book, I also learned about Boulinier, Crocodisc, Chez Sanchez, Monster Melodies, La Silence de la Rue, and Parallèles, which all specialize in a focused area of music. I discovered some incredible boutiques that I've never seen listed elsewhere. A few sights are mainstream (how can one visit Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe?) but what makes this book unique is the listing of sights, restaurants, and shops that are totally cool that I haven't seen elsewhere. And if you want up-to-the-minute changes to the text, one simply travels no farther than their website. The book also has a "bite" -- raw, honest opinions. One problem with my book, however. I have read it and carried it around so often that my copy is getting quite tattered. For anyone with a true sense of adventure or who wants to explore some unique French spots where you won't encounter dozens of other tourists, this is your book.



3. Without a doubt, the best travel guide I've ever used. I've been to Paris many, many times, and this guide led me to places I'd never even heard of. Particular strengths are in the areas of Clubs/Bars & Nightlife, Live Music & offbeat museums (who knew there was a Musee de l'Erotisme?) This book is a great choice for the fun-loving urban traveler. I'd highly recommend purchasing this in conjunction with "Time Out Paris", which is exceptionally good for restaurant recommendations.

   Bon voyage!




4. I have made numerous trips to Paris, armed with several guidebooks, including a Frommers, a Lonely Planet and an Eyewitness, and this is by far my favorite. It's fun to browse through and it makes it easy to find something you want to run out and see. It's a relief to find a guide that's not trying to be an exhaustive list of every possible restaurant, museum or hotel. It has just the right amount of practical info to get you where you want to be and ready for the reality of it when you get there.
   Until I used this guidebook I didn't realize that guidebooks are often jammed with too much (boring) information.
   
   The graphics and photos are terrific -none of those grainy 80's pictures of people eating croissants under the Eiffel tower.

2 comments about Expatriate Paris: A Cultural and Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920s.

1. The late Arlen Hansen was a legendery professor at the University of the Pacific, and a professor of mine. He taught a course on expatriate Paris in the 20's, and his passion for his subject comes through on every page of this book. I copied down information from this book for a recent trip to Paris, and without it I never would have found the apartment building in which Zelda Fitzgerald jammed the elevator on her and Scott's floor so that it would always be waiting for them (to the dismay of the manager). Such tid bits of delicious trivia abound on every page, and I highly recommend this book, especially if you are a fan of the literary 20's, and are planning on a trip to Paris in the future.



2. Hansen has given us a gift. His investigation into the haunts and habits of American writers and their circle in 1920's Paris is brilliant. Read the book and understand, in part, much of what they lived and how it manifests in their work. This is worth reading for myriad reasons. It is a romance, an adventure, an exploration.

2 comments about Walks in Gertrude Stein's Paris.

1. Excellent way to tour bohemian Paris. Gertrude Stein owned a bookstore on the Left Bank in the early 1900s, which was the heart of the literary and artistic scene. This book includes 5 great half-day walking tours of the Left Bank. Among the sites on the tour are Helen Rubenstein's mansion which she had decorated with Picassos and Van Goghs, and which was ransacked by German troups in 1940; the bars and restaurants where Ernst Hemingway hung out, and scenes which appear in "The Sun Also Rises"; and the studios and residences of Picasso, e. e. cummings, Colette, Matisse, etc., etc. Each site is described in one or more paragraphs. I highly recommend experiencing Gertrude Stein's Paris. (This book was published in 1988, and is currently out of print.)



2. Text is marred by numerous errors, not just of spelling, but of dates, too. To wit: Foyot's was demolished in 1937, not 1933 (p.72). Cafe Voltaire was at #1, not 21, Place de l'Odeon (p. 67). Modigliani died 1920, not 1926 (p.121). Nathaniel West was killed 1940, not 1944 (p.120). Ezra Pound never lived in the rue de Seine (p.22). It is a fiction produced by Hemingway himself that he once rented an attic room at 39, rue Descartes, where Verlaine died (p.130). There's no such thing as rue St. Germain in Paris. It's 'boulevard' (p.20). And so on... Author also borrows/copies heavily, at times almost verbatim (but w/o acknowledgement) from Brian N. Morton's "Americans in Paris". Now there's a book to own!

1 comments about Discovering Paris Bistros (Travel).

1. This is an excellent little book, a great and enjoyable read -- friendly, funny, straightforward in its descriptions of food and wine, and very detailed about specific dishes and the atmosphere of each restaurant or bistro.
   
   The only problem with the book is that it was published seventeen years ago, and it's not always easy to tell whether the restaurants in it are still in operation. However, there are web sites that have updated information about the restaurants: you can find them through Google or similar search engines by searching on the book's name.

No comments about Frommer's Portable Paris 2009 (Frommer's Portable).

No comments about Paris Insight Fleximap.

No comments about Medieval Paris (Journey to the Past).