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A Year in Paris: Season by Season in the City of Light
A Paperback Original
From the incomparable John Baxter, the bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, a sumptuous and definitive portrait of Paris through the seasons, highlighting the unique tastes, sights, and changing personality of the city in spring, summer, fall, and winter.
“A man with a great appreciation of what makes Paris tick.”— Newsday
When the common people of France revolted in 1789, one of the first ways they chose to correct the excesses of the monarchy and the church was to rename the months of the year. Selected by poet and playwright Philippe-Francois-Nazaire Fabre, these new names reflected what took place at that season in the natural world; Fructidor was the month of fruit, Floréal that of flowers, while the winter wind (vent) dominated Ventôse.
Though the names didn’t stick, these seasonal rhythms of the year continue to define Parisians, as well as travelers to the city. As acclaimed author and long-time Paris resident John Baxter himself recollects, “My own arrival in France took place in Nivôse, the month of snow, and continued in Pluviôse, the season of rain. To someone coming from Los Angeles, where seasons barely existed, the shock was visceral. Struggling to adjust, I found reassurance in the literature, music, even the cuisine of my adoptive country, all of which marched to the inaudible drummer of the seasons.”
Devoting a section of the book to each of Fabre’s months, Baxter draws upon Paris’s literary, cultural and artistic past to paint an affecting, unforgettable portrait of the city. Touching upon the various ghosts of Paris past, from Hemingway and Zelda Fitzgerald, to Claude Debussy to MFK Fisher to Francois Mitterrand, Baxter evokes the rhythms of the seasons in the City of Light, and the sense of wonder they can arouse for all who visit and live there.
A melange of history, travel reportage, and myth, of high culture and low, A Year in Paris is vintage John a vicarious thrill ride for anyone who loves Paris.
From the incomparable John Baxter, the bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, a sumptuous and definitive portrait of Paris through the seasons, highlighting the unique tastes, sights, and changing personality of the city in spring, summer, fall, and winter.
“A man with a great appreciation of what makes Paris tick.”— Newsday
When the common people of France revolted in 1789, one of the first ways they chose to correct the excesses of the monarchy and the church was to rename the months of the year. Selected by poet and playwright Philippe-Francois-Nazaire Fabre, these new names reflected what took place at that season in the natural world; Fructidor was the month of fruit, Floréal that of flowers, while the winter wind (vent) dominated Ventôse.
Though the names didn’t stick, these seasonal rhythms of the year continue to define Parisians, as well as travelers to the city. As acclaimed author and long-time Paris resident John Baxter himself recollects, “My own arrival in France took place in Nivôse, the month of snow, and continued in Pluviôse, the season of rain. To someone coming from Los Angeles, where seasons barely existed, the shock was visceral. Struggling to adjust, I found reassurance in the literature, music, even the cuisine of my adoptive country, all of which marched to the inaudible drummer of the seasons.”
Devoting a section of the book to each of Fabre’s months, Baxter draws upon Paris’s literary, cultural and artistic past to paint an affecting, unforgettable portrait of the city. Touching upon the various ghosts of Paris past, from Hemingway and Zelda Fitzgerald, to Claude Debussy to MFK Fisher to Francois Mitterrand, Baxter evokes the rhythms of the seasons in the City of Light, and the sense of wonder they can arouse for all who visit and live there.
A melange of history, travel reportage, and myth, of high culture and low, A Year in Paris is vintage John a vicarious thrill ride for anyone who loves Paris.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2019
80 people are currently reading
454 people want to read
About the author
John Baxter
226 books123 followersJohn Baxter (born 1939 in Randwick, New South Wales) is an Australian-born writer, journalist, and film-maker.
Baxter has lived in Britain and the United States as well as in his native Sydney, but has made his home in Paris since 1989, where he is married to the film-maker Marie-Dominique Montel. They have one daughter, Louise.
He began writing science fiction in the early 1960s for New Worlds, Science Fantasy and other British magazines. His first novel, though serialised in New Worlds as THE GOD KILLERS, was published as a book in the US by Ace as The Off-Worlders. He was Visiting Professor at Hollins College in Virginia in 1975-1976. He has written a number of short stories and novels in that genre and a book about SF in the movies, as well as editing collections of Australian science fiction.
Baxter has also written a large number of other works dealing with the movies, including biographies of film personalities, including Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, George Lucas and Robert De Niro. He has written a number of documentaries, including a survey of the life and work of the painter Fernando Botero. He also co-produced, wrote and presented three television series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Filmstruck, First Take and The Cutting Room, and was co-editor of the ABC book programme Books And Writing.
In the 1960s, he was a member of the WEA Film Study Group with such notable people as Ian Klava, Frank Moorhouse, Michael Thornhill, John Flaus and Ken Quinnell. From July 1965 to December 1967 the WEA Film Study Group published the cinema journal FILM DIGEST. This journal was edited by John Baxter.
For a number of years in the sixties, he was active in the Sydney Film Festival, and during the 1980s served in a consulting capacity on a number of film-funding bodies, as well as writing film criticism for The Australian and other periodicals. Some of his books have been translated into various languages, including Japanese and Chinese.
Since moving to Paris, he has written four books of autobiography, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Immoveable feast : a Paris Christmas, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World : a Pedestrian in Paris.
Since 2007 he has been co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop.
Baxter has lived in Britain and the United States as well as in his native Sydney, but has made his home in Paris since 1989, where he is married to the film-maker Marie-Dominique Montel. They have one daughter, Louise.
He began writing science fiction in the early 1960s for New Worlds, Science Fantasy and other British magazines. His first novel, though serialised in New Worlds as THE GOD KILLERS, was published as a book in the US by Ace as The Off-Worlders. He was Visiting Professor at Hollins College in Virginia in 1975-1976. He has written a number of short stories and novels in that genre and a book about SF in the movies, as well as editing collections of Australian science fiction.
Baxter has also written a large number of other works dealing with the movies, including biographies of film personalities, including Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, George Lucas and Robert De Niro. He has written a number of documentaries, including a survey of the life and work of the painter Fernando Botero. He also co-produced, wrote and presented three television series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Filmstruck, First Take and The Cutting Room, and was co-editor of the ABC book programme Books And Writing.
In the 1960s, he was a member of the WEA Film Study Group with such notable people as Ian Klava, Frank Moorhouse, Michael Thornhill, John Flaus and Ken Quinnell. From July 1965 to December 1967 the WEA Film Study Group published the cinema journal FILM DIGEST. This journal was edited by John Baxter.
For a number of years in the sixties, he was active in the Sydney Film Festival, and during the 1980s served in a consulting capacity on a number of film-funding bodies, as well as writing film criticism for The Australian and other periodicals. Some of his books have been translated into various languages, including Japanese and Chinese.
Since moving to Paris, he has written four books of autobiography, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Immoveable feast : a Paris Christmas, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World : a Pedestrian in Paris.
Since 2007 he has been co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
March 10, 2019
Non-fiction book for Feb 2019 My Book Box.
If anyone writes more beautifully about Paris than John Baxter, I’ve yet to read them.
This book is supposedly about Paris throughout the year. It loosely follows this (there are some jumps in season, time, and place) as well as a brief history of the Revolution’s desire to change the calenderer.
It is best to think of this book as part memoir of seasons of his life in Paris, as well as seasons of Paris. Each chapter is like a meditation.
There are interesting little factoids that pop up. Like France’s obsession with sanitation. Or how names use to be chosen for French children. There is a wonderful bit about April, Paris, and music. There are observations like, “More so in France than anywhere else in the world, political survival turns on a gesture” (207).
There are parts of the book that are somewhat, well strange. It’s not the comparison between Baxter’s Australia or California. Those parts are interesting. It’s just sometimes, it almost feels like he is oversharing. There is a bit too much about his sexual relationships. Don’t get me wrong, the details aren’t overly graphic, and the first relationship is actually beautifully described. However, he does seem to think of Paris, in part, as terms of women he has relationships with. (Most importantly, it should be fairly noted, his wife and daughter. He dedicates the book to both, and they do seem to be the loves of his life. The two non-marriage relationships occur prior to the marriage). So, we also get details about his relationship with a German woman. There also is a weird bit about an Aussie’s man’s junk. Which comes out of left field. I’m not really sure why that was there.
Still, it is a beautiful book about Paris. You should read it.
If anyone writes more beautifully about Paris than John Baxter, I’ve yet to read them.
This book is supposedly about Paris throughout the year. It loosely follows this (there are some jumps in season, time, and place) as well as a brief history of the Revolution’s desire to change the calenderer.
It is best to think of this book as part memoir of seasons of his life in Paris, as well as seasons of Paris. Each chapter is like a meditation.
There are interesting little factoids that pop up. Like France’s obsession with sanitation. Or how names use to be chosen for French children. There is a wonderful bit about April, Paris, and music. There are observations like, “More so in France than anywhere else in the world, political survival turns on a gesture” (207).
There are parts of the book that are somewhat, well strange. It’s not the comparison between Baxter’s Australia or California. Those parts are interesting. It’s just sometimes, it almost feels like he is oversharing. There is a bit too much about his sexual relationships. Don’t get me wrong, the details aren’t overly graphic, and the first relationship is actually beautifully described. However, he does seem to think of Paris, in part, as terms of women he has relationships with. (Most importantly, it should be fairly noted, his wife and daughter. He dedicates the book to both, and they do seem to be the loves of his life. The two non-marriage relationships occur prior to the marriage). So, we also get details about his relationship with a German woman. There also is a weird bit about an Aussie’s man’s junk. Which comes out of left field. I’m not really sure why that was there.
Still, it is a beautiful book about Paris. You should read it.
February 6, 2020
By the title, I expected this book to be tightly honed on Paris, and with a chronological flow that allowed me to get a sense of the city's seasons. Instead, the subject matter wandered much as one might as a flaneur in Paris itself. I really didn't care to find out about his sexual exploits of the 1970s right near the beginning, but as I read on I found some chapters to be more engaging. The chapters fluctuate between personal explorations around France or the world, and some intriguing insights into France's tumultuous history, especially as it relates to the calendar and Fabre d’Églantine. Those bits made the read worthwhile for me.
That said, I'm glad the book was short. It is very much for the literary set. He name-drops and quotes highfalutin lit constantly. This might alienate some readers who pick up the book expecting a casual travelogue. A number of the introductory bits to chapters don't seem to connect to the rest of the text at all. The book lacks any kind of logical flow, which I found especially frustrating since it often addressed the theme of time's passage. Maybe this was an attempt to be contradictory and daring, but I found it just plain annoying throughout.
Baxter had some great lines and insights here and there:
"California found no merit in dwelling on the past, whereas France seemed to do little else."
"I’d already learned some other oddities of the French calendar from experience. Museums close on Tuesdays, and on Wednesdays schools hold classes only in the morning. Food and produce markets take Sundays and Mondays off, in return for opening on Saturdays. Even then, many close at 12:30 p.m. and don’t reopen until 4 p.m., but then remain open until 8 p.m. Also, for no particular reason that I could discover, our local baker closed on Wednesdays.
And somewhere behind all this, Foucault’s pendulum kept its steady tick tick tick, measuring out the hours to a timetable that only Parisians know."
That said, I'm glad the book was short. It is very much for the literary set. He name-drops and quotes highfalutin lit constantly. This might alienate some readers who pick up the book expecting a casual travelogue. A number of the introductory bits to chapters don't seem to connect to the rest of the text at all. The book lacks any kind of logical flow, which I found especially frustrating since it often addressed the theme of time's passage. Maybe this was an attempt to be contradictory and daring, but I found it just plain annoying throughout.
Baxter had some great lines and insights here and there:
"California found no merit in dwelling on the past, whereas France seemed to do little else."
"I’d already learned some other oddities of the French calendar from experience. Museums close on Tuesdays, and on Wednesdays schools hold classes only in the morning. Food and produce markets take Sundays and Mondays off, in return for opening on Saturdays. Even then, many close at 12:30 p.m. and don’t reopen until 4 p.m., but then remain open until 8 p.m. Also, for no particular reason that I could discover, our local baker closed on Wednesdays.
And somewhere behind all this, Foucault’s pendulum kept its steady tick tick tick, measuring out the hours to a timetable that only Parisians know."
January 21, 2019
There may be no better guide through Paris than John Baxter. He is an outsider and an insider, able to look at Paris with both the objective viewpoint of an onlooker and the heart of a Paris lover who has been invited to partake of the secret joys of the Paris life. He is a researcher and a writer who can combine the history of Paris with present-day Paris, the intellectualism of Paris with the bawdiness of Paris, the glory of Paris with the horrors of Paris, the reality of Paris with the mystery of Paris.
Baxter formats A Year in Paris around the seasons, and he travels between the past and the present day to create a rich portrait of the city. Baxter draws upon the new calendar created by ne-er-do-well Philippe Fabre d'Eglantine after the peasant revolt of 1789 to underpin the seasonal rhythms of the book, and he shares story-after-little-known-fascinating-story about Paris people, Paris places, Paris events.
It's a joy and a delight of a book.
Baxter formats A Year in Paris around the seasons, and he travels between the past and the present day to create a rich portrait of the city. Baxter draws upon the new calendar created by ne-er-do-well Philippe Fabre d'Eglantine after the peasant revolt of 1789 to underpin the seasonal rhythms of the book, and he shares story-after-little-known-fascinating-story about Paris people, Paris places, Paris events.
It's a joy and a delight of a book.
May 26, 2020
This book was just alright. I have a trip planned for France and thought it would give me some ideas on what to visit. Instead it was about some history of the French calendar and other bits of French trivia. The trivia seemed to be random in nature and different for each chapter. I read "A Paris Christmas" by this same author and enjoyed it more. Would read more by this author if it was a book regarding information and history of Paris sights.
March 6, 2019
Books about Paris are like books about bookshops - I'll read almost any of them. This one had a promising hook in which the reader was told the author would investigate and use the French Republican calendar, as created during the French Revolution, to tell the story of Paris throughout the year, especially how Parisians, despite being city dwellers, are still very tied to the rhythms of nature. I had it in my head that meant the author was actually going to start with the first month of said calendar, Vendémiaire, and proceed in chronological order through the seasons. Alas! it was not to be. First of all, it takes several meandering chapters before Baxter finally gets around to explaining the calendar at all. And then there are several more chapters scattered throughout which seem unrelated. Even worse, when he does discuss said seasons of time, they are all jumbled up. Which is a shame, because when he does stick to the history of the promised topic, I enjoyed the book. I learned things I didn't know, and I was especially thrilled to discover Louis Lafitte's charming illustrations. However, this book is lacking both what it promises and any sort of profound social commentary. Stick to Adam Gopnik for that.
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June 16, 2022I enjoyed this book very much, like savoring a little box of bonbons I could dip into while reclining on my couch. I enjoyed its small well-designed format when heavy hard-backed tomes become too weighty to hold. It's difficult to write with a fresh point of view about Paris, that place so many have rhapsodized and chronicled. The author, an Australian, has approached his extended stay in Paris with two ways of organizing the impossible breadth of possible insights.He has a French wife and he uses the Republican calendar that was invented after the Revolution by Fabre d'Eglantine. Baxter concludes that Paris is above all always aware of the changing seasons from the produce in the market to the fashion on the boulevards as well as revealing conversations in the cafes. Living as an emigre he has the luxury to up close and personal interactions with the details of each street, and the information locals add to his own observations and gleaning of interesting facts and trivia. Since I am not traveling in Europe this year this little book provided a vicarious experience in depth of a feeling for France in general and Paris in particular. It was time well spent, a nice alternative to a vacuous beach read.
May 12, 2020
This was a pleasant book to read in bits and pieces. It is more like a series of vignettes, tied loosely together by the French Republican calendar. Baxter mixes in history, travelogue, cuisine and culture with an almost haphazard connection to the passing seasons. He's an engaging companion.
November 30, 2019
This book was just all over the place. It's title and cover are deceiving. The parts about the post-French Revolution calendar were interesting, but they are few and far between. Just stick to something!
July 30, 2024
Mildly entertaining, somewhat uneven but still an interesting read from Baxter. The thought pieces didn't grab me, but I was engaged by his tales of the revolution
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May 16, 2020Christmas with Kangaroos
The French believe that all errors are distant, someone else’s fault,
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
the Pont de l’Alma, the seventeen–foot statue of a Z
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
imply links between different worlds.
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
unglamorous Pont de Bir– Hakeim, which celebrate
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn pass under this and a dozen other bridges during their nocturnal rendezvou
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
same one where Gene Kelly dances with Leslie Caron in An
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
New Bridge, which was new once, when work concluded in 1607
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Jews’ Island, it was here that Jacques de Molay, grand master of
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
lieutenant Geoffroy de Charnay were burned at the stake in March 1314, and from where the ashes of Guy Debord, who for
May 11, 2020
11. Tock . . . Tock . . . Tock . . .
t and reason, not the soul of man but his mind.
May 11, 2020
12. Baby Time
faint and yellow as a streetlamp, g
May 11, 2020
13. Something to Kill
My tastes are not those of the king, who has none, except for hunting and mechanic’s labor
May 11, 2020
13. Something to Kill
the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
MOST REVOLUTIONS, IN THE RUSH TO “MAKE IT NEW,” BEGIN WITH the easy stuff: a new flag, a new anthem, new faces on the currency.
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
meter, corresponding to a proportion of the circumference of the earth.
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
Danton’s statue, in a cobbled alley called Cour du Commerce Saint–
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
The prejudices of the throne and the church poisoned every page of the ancient calendar.”
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
the moment produced the man
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
thirty–seven bridge
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Steven Spielberg
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Goldie Hawn defies gravity to float above Woody
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Pont du Garigliano, one of the less
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce,
May 11, 2020
10. Stormy Monday
a gray fog had shrouded the city
May 11, 2020
11. Tock . . . Tock . . . Tock . . .
it still moves
May 11, 2020
11. Tock . . . Tock . . . Tock . . .
Foucault’s
May 11, 2020
12. Baby Time
the FIAC art fair . . .”
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
latter supposedly based on the length of the foot of Hercules
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
Fabre of the Wild Rose.
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
loose cannon
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
once a commission was convened to debate the new calendar, who better to keep an eye on its deliberations than the ambitious Fabre?
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
Rouget de Lisle, named “La Marseil
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
the silver lily. The same men hooted at the claim that Clémence Isaure
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
She is Clémence Isaure, the imaginary doyenne of Toulouse fro
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
The months were given names ending in one of four syllables. Those
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
terminated in “aire,” winter months in “ôse,” spring months in “al,” and summer in “dor.”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
from prairie, the French word for “meadow,” which the first explorers gave to the grasslands of the American West.
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
it would one day be metered by Foucault’s pendulum: inexorable, essential, eternal.
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
If you want to see God la
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
in life, since taken it for granted. It comes from an obscure 1932 Broadway
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
over a montage of cafés and flowers, all from last summer, of course
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
country singer named T. Texas Tyler recorded a recitation called “The Deck of Cards.” To the quasidevotional noodling of an
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
parcels of seeds for trees, grasses, and exotic fruits and vegetables
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
his buttonhole, saying it was “not appropriate to my gardener’s shirt
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
ramener ta fraise” (literally “pull in your strawberry”—the
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
mind your own business,
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
“Il pleut, bergère”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
burning charcoal signifies that the chestnut seller is back
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
which
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
do
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
fall
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Vendémiaire
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
April in Paris,”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Lovers that bless the dark / On benches in Central Park.”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
The marron (chestnut)
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Thomas Jefferson,
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
regularly exchanged
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Fraise (strawberry)
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Coco soft–drink seller in the Paris streets, 1900s.
May 15, 2020
15. The New Era
Paris in sunshine has a
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
Wing feathers provided quills for writing, and the soft dow
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
could develop a poisonous fungus.
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
In 1946, swimwear designer Louis Réard chose it to
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
hired showgirl Micheline Bernardini, w
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
Michaelmas
No title
Comte renumbered the years, beginning with the “great crisis” of 1789. Months and days were named for great figures in science, religion, philosophy, industry, and literature, ranging from Gutenberg and Shakespeare to Buddha and Socrates.
May 16, 2020
No title
William Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and its celebration of April, which “with its sweet-smelling shower has pierced the drought of March to the root.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Nijinsky
May 16, 2020
No title
Diaghilev
May 16, 2020
No title
Nijinsky poured his imagination and incipient schizophrenia into the choreography. Zelda Fitzgerald, another schizophrenic seized with an urge to dance, described the distorted perceptions that sometimes accompany an attack. “I see odd things,” she wrote. “People’s arms too long, or their faces as if they were stuffed and they look tiny and far away, or suddenly out of proportion.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get One perfect rose.
May 16, 2020
No title
When they burst into the Bastille on July 14, the ancient prison held only seven inmates, and the rebels were less interested in releasing them than in seizing the weapons stored there.
May 16, 2020
No title
London, but the Allies approaching Paris agreed to hang back until he made his lap of victory.
May 16, 2020
No title
those who could entertain as well as persuade.
May 16, 2020
No title
Once he became president and began inviting colleagues and allies to join him and his family and friends in the climb, the press took a keen interest in the guest list. Each year’s walk—evoking Mitterrand’s links to the war, nature, and the national heritage—and those who made it with him became news.
May 16, 2020
No title
The rose became the symbol of love, the bud signifying virginity, the full-blown blossom standing for the woman open to every erotic experience, and the thorns the pain of unrequited or unfulfilled love.
May 16, 2020
No title
Daniel Barenboim, on the far side of the square, lifted his baton to lead the Orchestre de Paris in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
May 16, 2020
No title
Shakespeare wrote, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Historically, politically, culturally, agriculturally, May has traditionally meant bad news.
May 16, 2020
No title
Communists and socialists celebrate May 1, May Day, as a workers’ holiday,
May 16, 2020
No title
makes sobering reading
May 16, 2020
No title
In May, the blood is hot. Testosterone is in the air.
May 16, 2020
No title
In the half century following the death of Napoléon, liberty, equality, and fraternity were eclipsed by wine, women, and song.
May 16, 2020
No title
Yet “Thermidor” survives today mainly as a culinary term. In 1896, chef Auguste Escoffie
May 16, 2020
No title
Among his signature dishes was a concoction of lobster in a cream-and-cognac sauce.
May 16, 2020
No title
secondhand street markets known as brocantes.
May 16, 2020
No title
They’ve been doing so for centuries. Only the terminology changes. These days, a health-conscious society less accommodating of vermin shuns the term marché aux puces (flea market). They prefer vide-grenier (literally “attic emptier”), grand balai (big sweep-out), or marché pour tous (market for everyone), but most use the all-purpose term brocante.
May 16, 2020
No title
Sunday lunch with mother, godmother, grandmother, or favorite aunt was a ritual hardwired into French female DNA.
May 16, 2020
No title
But all revolutions are by their nature amateur, made up as the principals go along.
May 16, 2020
No title
who gathered in the Théâtre de l’Odéon to cheer a carrot-topped rabble-rouser named Daniel Cohn-Bendit, aka “Danny the Red.
May 16, 2020
No title
Revolution
May 16, 2020
No title
has not only its seasons but a price as well.
May 16, 2020
No title
Maybe Sarah Bernhardt did live in this building, but to us it’s where our dentist has his office.
May 16, 2020
No title
Historians of the Lost Generation will tell you that writers and artists hung out in cafés for the conversation. More likely it was because the toilets were clean.
May 16, 2020
No title
where Amélie Poulain worked in the famous film, the keening sound of bagpipes floated up the hill.
May 16, 2020
No title
Saint Denis, the patron saint of Paris, was decapitated by Roman soldiers at the foot of the hill.
May 16, 2020
No title
Irish pastors, most of whom, we assumed, had been exiled to rural Australia in punishment for some unmentionable transgression
May 16, 2020
No title
European markets have aisles; this one had avenues . . . boulevards . . . freeways of foo
May 16, 2020
No title
It taught me that, in food as in most things, the essence of pleasure resides in timing.
May 16, 2020
No title
Chirac’s enthusiasm for apples became public while he was still mayor of Paris.
May 16, 2020
No title
Clochards, despite their unprepossessing appearance, were ideal for baking with mea
May 16, 2020
No title
Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it,
May 16, 2020
No title
for a dinner of oysters; foie gras; capons, those fattest of all chickens; and, as a starter, ortolans.
May 16, 2020
No title
The long sobs of autumn’s violins Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.
May 16, 2020
No title
Paul Verlaine’s “Chanson d’automne”
May 16, 2020
No title
Modern jazz is an art of the night. So is sex
May 16, 2020
No title
The seventeenth-century exterior of No. 14 looked unremarkable. Exposed beams and crooked windows gave no hint that it housed one of Paris’s most popular sex clubs
May 16, 2020
No title
test the limits of what was possible between consenting adults.
May 16, 2020
No title
One of the last of Miaux’s poems celebrated the first harvest after liberation. It’s the month when the earth rejoices in its abundance When the hot sun brings the wheat to maturity When the stalks are heavy with grain And the harvesters gather them, singing. The poem was called “Messidor.” Naturally.
May 16, 2020
No title
BBC. One text they used was Verlaine’s “Chanson d’automne.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Champ de Mars as we watched the golden late-summer day turn into a luminous evening lit by a blue moon and the sparkle of the Tour Eiffel.
May 16, 2020
No title
Jean Cocteau and Christian Bérard are still present, Bérard in the mural he painted for one of La Méditerranée’s dining rooms and Cocteau in the designs used on its marquee, linen, and china, based on a sketch he dashed off in its guest book.
May 16, 2020
No title
THE FOOT OF OUR STREET, RUE DE L’ODÉON, CONVERGES WITH RUE de Condé, rue Monsieur-le-Prince, and boulevard Saint-Germain to create an open space, the Carrefour (crossroads) de l’Odéon
May 16, 2020
No title
dragon tree, which promised to blossom with purple flowers in the spring.
May 16, 2020
No title
labour is the mine whence riches flow.
May 16, 2020
No title
France, like the pivot of Foucault’s pendulum, remains in its essentials unchanged
The French believe that all errors are distant, someone else’s fault,
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
the Pont de l’Alma, the seventeen–foot statue of a Z
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
imply links between different worlds.
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
unglamorous Pont de Bir– Hakeim, which celebrate
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn pass under this and a dozen other bridges during their nocturnal rendezvou
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
same one where Gene Kelly dances with Leslie Caron in An
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
New Bridge, which was new once, when work concluded in 1607
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Jews’ Island, it was here that Jacques de Molay, grand master of
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
lieutenant Geoffroy de Charnay were burned at the stake in March 1314, and from where the ashes of Guy Debord, who for
May 11, 2020
11. Tock . . . Tock . . . Tock . . .
t and reason, not the soul of man but his mind.
May 11, 2020
12. Baby Time
faint and yellow as a streetlamp, g
May 11, 2020
13. Something to Kill
My tastes are not those of the king, who has none, except for hunting and mechanic’s labor
May 11, 2020
13. Something to Kill
the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
MOST REVOLUTIONS, IN THE RUSH TO “MAKE IT NEW,” BEGIN WITH the easy stuff: a new flag, a new anthem, new faces on the currency.
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
meter, corresponding to a proportion of the circumference of the earth.
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
Danton’s statue, in a cobbled alley called Cour du Commerce Saint–
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
The prejudices of the throne and the church poisoned every page of the ancient calendar.”
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
the moment produced the man
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
thirty–seven bridge
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Steven Spielberg
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Goldie Hawn defies gravity to float above Woody
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
Pont du Garigliano, one of the less
May 4, 2020
6. The Seine in Flood
history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce,
May 11, 2020
10. Stormy Monday
a gray fog had shrouded the city
May 11, 2020
11. Tock . . . Tock . . . Tock . . .
it still moves
May 11, 2020
11. Tock . . . Tock . . . Tock . . .
Foucault’s
May 11, 2020
12. Baby Time
the FIAC art fair . . .”
May 11, 2020
14. Starting Over
latter supposedly based on the length of the foot of Hercules
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
Fabre of the Wild Rose.
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
loose cannon
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
once a commission was convened to debate the new calendar, who better to keep an eye on its deliberations than the ambitious Fabre?
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
Rouget de Lisle, named “La Marseil
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
the silver lily. The same men hooted at the claim that Clémence Isaure
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
She is Clémence Isaure, the imaginary doyenne of Toulouse fro
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
The months were given names ending in one of four syllables. Those
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
terminated in “aire,” winter months in “ôse,” spring months in “al,” and summer in “dor.”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
from prairie, the French word for “meadow,” which the first explorers gave to the grasslands of the American West.
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
it would one day be metered by Foucault’s pendulum: inexorable, essential, eternal.
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
If you want to see God la
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
in life, since taken it for granted. It comes from an obscure 1932 Broadway
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
over a montage of cafés and flowers, all from last summer, of course
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
country singer named T. Texas Tyler recorded a recitation called “The Deck of Cards.” To the quasidevotional noodling of an
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
parcels of seeds for trees, grasses, and exotic fruits and vegetables
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
his buttonhole, saying it was “not appropriate to my gardener’s shirt
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
ramener ta fraise” (literally “pull in your strawberry”—the
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
mind your own business,
May 11, 2020
15. The New Era
“Il pleut, bergère”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
burning charcoal signifies that the chestnut seller is back
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
which
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
do
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
fall
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Vendémiaire
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
April in Paris,”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Lovers that bless the dark / On benches in Central Park.”
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
The marron (chestnut)
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Thomas Jefferson,
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
regularly exchanged
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Fraise (strawberry)
May 12, 2020
15. The New Era
Coco soft–drink seller in the Paris streets, 1900s.
May 15, 2020
15. The New Era
Paris in sunshine has a
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
Wing feathers provided quills for writing, and the soft dow
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
could develop a poisonous fungus.
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
In 1946, swimwear designer Louis Réard chose it to
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
hired showgirl Micheline Bernardini, w
May 15, 2020
29. Exit Fabre
Michaelmas
No title
Comte renumbered the years, beginning with the “great crisis” of 1789. Months and days were named for great figures in science, religion, philosophy, industry, and literature, ranging from Gutenberg and Shakespeare to Buddha and Socrates.
May 16, 2020
No title
William Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and its celebration of April, which “with its sweet-smelling shower has pierced the drought of March to the root.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Nijinsky
May 16, 2020
No title
Diaghilev
May 16, 2020
No title
Nijinsky poured his imagination and incipient schizophrenia into the choreography. Zelda Fitzgerald, another schizophrenic seized with an urge to dance, described the distorted perceptions that sometimes accompany an attack. “I see odd things,” she wrote. “People’s arms too long, or their faces as if they were stuffed and they look tiny and far away, or suddenly out of proportion.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get One perfect rose.
May 16, 2020
No title
When they burst into the Bastille on July 14, the ancient prison held only seven inmates, and the rebels were less interested in releasing them than in seizing the weapons stored there.
May 16, 2020
No title
London, but the Allies approaching Paris agreed to hang back until he made his lap of victory.
May 16, 2020
No title
those who could entertain as well as persuade.
May 16, 2020
No title
Once he became president and began inviting colleagues and allies to join him and his family and friends in the climb, the press took a keen interest in the guest list. Each year’s walk—evoking Mitterrand’s links to the war, nature, and the national heritage—and those who made it with him became news.
May 16, 2020
No title
The rose became the symbol of love, the bud signifying virginity, the full-blown blossom standing for the woman open to every erotic experience, and the thorns the pain of unrequited or unfulfilled love.
May 16, 2020
No title
Daniel Barenboim, on the far side of the square, lifted his baton to lead the Orchestre de Paris in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
May 16, 2020
No title
Shakespeare wrote, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Historically, politically, culturally, agriculturally, May has traditionally meant bad news.
May 16, 2020
No title
Communists and socialists celebrate May 1, May Day, as a workers’ holiday,
May 16, 2020
No title
makes sobering reading
May 16, 2020
No title
In May, the blood is hot. Testosterone is in the air.
May 16, 2020
No title
In the half century following the death of Napoléon, liberty, equality, and fraternity were eclipsed by wine, women, and song.
May 16, 2020
No title
Yet “Thermidor” survives today mainly as a culinary term. In 1896, chef Auguste Escoffie
May 16, 2020
No title
Among his signature dishes was a concoction of lobster in a cream-and-cognac sauce.
May 16, 2020
No title
secondhand street markets known as brocantes.
May 16, 2020
No title
They’ve been doing so for centuries. Only the terminology changes. These days, a health-conscious society less accommodating of vermin shuns the term marché aux puces (flea market). They prefer vide-grenier (literally “attic emptier”), grand balai (big sweep-out), or marché pour tous (market for everyone), but most use the all-purpose term brocante.
May 16, 2020
No title
Sunday lunch with mother, godmother, grandmother, or favorite aunt was a ritual hardwired into French female DNA.
May 16, 2020
No title
But all revolutions are by their nature amateur, made up as the principals go along.
May 16, 2020
No title
who gathered in the Théâtre de l’Odéon to cheer a carrot-topped rabble-rouser named Daniel Cohn-Bendit, aka “Danny the Red.
May 16, 2020
No title
Revolution
May 16, 2020
No title
has not only its seasons but a price as well.
May 16, 2020
No title
Maybe Sarah Bernhardt did live in this building, but to us it’s where our dentist has his office.
May 16, 2020
No title
Historians of the Lost Generation will tell you that writers and artists hung out in cafés for the conversation. More likely it was because the toilets were clean.
May 16, 2020
No title
where Amélie Poulain worked in the famous film, the keening sound of bagpipes floated up the hill.
May 16, 2020
No title
Saint Denis, the patron saint of Paris, was decapitated by Roman soldiers at the foot of the hill.
May 16, 2020
No title
Irish pastors, most of whom, we assumed, had been exiled to rural Australia in punishment for some unmentionable transgression
May 16, 2020
No title
European markets have aisles; this one had avenues . . . boulevards . . . freeways of foo
May 16, 2020
No title
It taught me that, in food as in most things, the essence of pleasure resides in timing.
May 16, 2020
No title
Chirac’s enthusiasm for apples became public while he was still mayor of Paris.
May 16, 2020
No title
Clochards, despite their unprepossessing appearance, were ideal for baking with mea
May 16, 2020
No title
Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it,
May 16, 2020
No title
for a dinner of oysters; foie gras; capons, those fattest of all chickens; and, as a starter, ortolans.
May 16, 2020
No title
The long sobs of autumn’s violins Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.
May 16, 2020
No title
Paul Verlaine’s “Chanson d’automne”
May 16, 2020
No title
Modern jazz is an art of the night. So is sex
May 16, 2020
No title
The seventeenth-century exterior of No. 14 looked unremarkable. Exposed beams and crooked windows gave no hint that it housed one of Paris’s most popular sex clubs
May 16, 2020
No title
test the limits of what was possible between consenting adults.
May 16, 2020
No title
One of the last of Miaux’s poems celebrated the first harvest after liberation. It’s the month when the earth rejoices in its abundance When the hot sun brings the wheat to maturity When the stalks are heavy with grain And the harvesters gather them, singing. The poem was called “Messidor.” Naturally.
May 16, 2020
No title
BBC. One text they used was Verlaine’s “Chanson d’automne.”
May 16, 2020
No title
Champ de Mars as we watched the golden late-summer day turn into a luminous evening lit by a blue moon and the sparkle of the Tour Eiffel.
May 16, 2020
No title
Jean Cocteau and Christian Bérard are still present, Bérard in the mural he painted for one of La Méditerranée’s dining rooms and Cocteau in the designs used on its marquee, linen, and china, based on a sketch he dashed off in its guest book.
May 16, 2020
No title
THE FOOT OF OUR STREET, RUE DE L’ODÉON, CONVERGES WITH RUE de Condé, rue Monsieur-le-Prince, and boulevard Saint-Germain to create an open space, the Carrefour (crossroads) de l’Odéon
May 16, 2020
No title
dragon tree, which promised to blossom with purple flowers in the spring.
May 16, 2020
No title
labour is the mine whence riches flow.
May 16, 2020
No title
France, like the pivot of Foucault’s pendulum, remains in its essentials unchanged
July 10, 2019
I loved the back and forth weaving of the revolutionary calendar with the Paris of present time. As a student of the French Revolution, this was an innovative take of historical and current culture/events. Yes there are some mistakes but on all it was a fun read
March 18, 2019
I was going to give this book a 3.5 rating, but the more I read the more it pulled me in. From the title, A Year In Paris, I was expecting to hear about the author’s life during a year (as in one year) in Paris (since he’s a transplant from Australia). Instead what I got was an interesting, time expanse of a history lesson through the years in Paris. I learned a lot. Mr. Baxter has an interesting way of writing and putting ideas together that I enjoy. Sometimes I did wonder where he was going with the information he was writing about, but he brought all the ideas and events to an interesting conclusion at the end of the book.
January 5, 2020
Maybe I’m not being fair because I couldn’t get past chapter 5 in this book but it’s terrible. This dude talks about following this woman to France and attempts painting some romantic scene but uses words like ‘love making’ and ‘moist’ and at one point refers to a place in the city as a pubic triangle. Feels like a creepy dude’s idea of Paris and it’s boring AF. Anyone who reads this and thinks it’s a beautiful story in Paris also thinks Olive Garden is a good Italian place for a date. Hard pass.
May 24, 2024
For me, I would call this a "beach read" or the light reading that I feel like people often enjoy in romance novels or "chick lit" that I don't often connect with...it's part-travelogue and part-anecdotal history loosely centered around a movement during the French Revolution to reformat the French calendar into a system that was based on the metric system and the seasons specific to France, but written with a breezy memoirish tone following the personal ramblings, life experiences and historical interests of its author, who is more widely known as a film biographer and cinephile.
Things I like: short chapters! wonderful diary-esque entries at the start of each chapter (which was actually my favorite part and I could've used more of this)! France! food! seasons! vibes! personal anecdotes and observations! quirky history!
Things that didn't land for me: really wanted a more formatted structure, which I feel like the concept begged for and the lack of which left this lacking any distinct connective tissue to give the book a spine; could've, in fact, used more French food and seasons and land and history and a little less personal musings
Would still read more French books by this author, which I found relaxing and wistful as a person who cannot jaunt off to Paris this summer no matter how much I want to.
Things I like: short chapters! wonderful diary-esque entries at the start of each chapter (which was actually my favorite part and I could've used more of this)! France! food! seasons! vibes! personal anecdotes and observations! quirky history!
Things that didn't land for me: really wanted a more formatted structure, which I feel like the concept begged for and the lack of which left this lacking any distinct connective tissue to give the book a spine; could've, in fact, used more French food and seasons and land and history and a little less personal musings
Would still read more French books by this author, which I found relaxing and wistful as a person who cannot jaunt off to Paris this summer no matter how much I want to.
October 25, 2021
I really enjoy reading John Baxter's takes on Paris, and this book was no exception, but it isn't one of my very favorites. I kept wavering about how to rate it. At one point during my read I would think it was a solid three. Then he would soar into a wonderful description of a meal (food writing is his forte, in my humble opinion), and I would revise upward. After I finished it, I decided it was more than a three and less than a four... so three it is.
I quite liked the framing device of the Republican calendar and its history. This was new information to me, and I found it fascinating (and way too complicated to succeed, although that's only one of many reasons it didn't). But overall, the book, while always engaging, was uneven. Still, don't let me deter you from it! It's just not quite as good as We'll Always Have Paris, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, or incomparable (to me!) Immovable Feast: A Paris Christmas.
I quite liked the framing device of the Republican calendar and its history. This was new information to me, and I found it fascinating (and way too complicated to succeed, although that's only one of many reasons it didn't). But overall, the book, while always engaging, was uneven. Still, don't let me deter you from it! It's just not quite as good as We'll Always Have Paris, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, or incomparable (to me!) Immovable Feast: A Paris Christmas.
April 24, 2020
Don’t/didn’t know who the author was (he referred to himself as an actor or something arty).
What’s up with mentioning the temperature at the beginning of each chapter?
Too much of Fabre and the changing up of the calendar. Is this supposed to be interesting? I guess too much mention and it’s just NOT interesting, and I’m a history buff.
Just a mish mash of topics...I’m NOT sure what this book is. It’s part history of France/Paris, part living in Paris, part personal/family stories and then there’s chapters of various time/years in non France places (Malibu, Germany, ... ). I skipped over these.
What’s up with mentioning the temperature at the beginning of each chapter?
Too much of Fabre and the changing up of the calendar. Is this supposed to be interesting? I guess too much mention and it’s just NOT interesting, and I’m a history buff.
Just a mish mash of topics...I’m NOT sure what this book is. It’s part history of France/Paris, part living in Paris, part personal/family stories and then there’s chapters of various time/years in non France places (Malibu, Germany, ... ). I skipped over these.
June 23, 2019
John Baxter, an Australian by birth right, but a Francophile by choice describes his love of French food and culture which in France are intertwined completely. Baxter uses a variety of historical events ( the French Revolution, World War II, and modern French president) to describe France's love for food and farming. The chapters on the French Revolution and the designing of a new calendar were interesting, but Baxter also reminisces on his life in the United States and Australia which detracts from the story line. This book is a mixed bag.
August 5, 2019
An interesting stroll through Paris, both in time and in location, but too meandering to be great. Interesting factoids make the book well worth it but it’s not ‘season by season in the City of Light.” Its more of an appropriately lengthy tour around Paris with a side note on how the seasons (or maybe even, the failed restructuring of the calendar) play a role on its people. At times it felt like an excuse to display how the author is incredibly well read and it strangely delves into his sexual history (but not disrespectfully or graphically). It’s worth the read, overall.
January 29, 2020
Sweet ensemble of anecdotes about Paris and France all tied together by the ribbon of the story of the Calendrier Republicain. It was a very charming recount of that curious revolutionary attempt at making absolutely everything reason and science based in France when the Republique was established, but more importantly breaking with the religious customs and traditions of the Ancien Regime. I thoroughly appreciated learning about this story and the eternal moods of the Paris seasons as told by John Baxter in his easy going bon vivant style.
July 16, 2025
I just came back from my 3rd visit to France (over a 22 year span) and found this book in a small artsy bookstore in Plano Texas. I wanted to extend the feeling I had in Paris so I bought it on a whim.
I loved immersing myself in Baxter's world of literature, history, music, friendship, food, architecture, art and more.
I have also just recently finished a very long and detailed podcast on the French revolution and his referring to it and in particular the attempt to revamp the calendar was the highlight of the book. I wish it had succeeded, I enjoy visiting France in Floréal!
I loved immersing myself in Baxter's world of literature, history, music, friendship, food, architecture, art and more.
I have also just recently finished a very long and detailed podcast on the French revolution and his referring to it and in particular the attempt to revamp the calendar was the highlight of the book. I wish it had succeeded, I enjoy visiting France in Floréal!
June 22, 2019
I chose this book based on a NYT Book Review recommendation. The reviewer raved about it, I wasn't quite that satisfied. The book is charming but disjointed; the structure of capturing the essence of Paris based on the seasons was belabored. However many of the chapters did appeal to my love of travel, history and culture. I suspect I might have enjoyed this more had I actually visited France, instead of reading as a prospective tourist.
August 1, 2019
A series of essays shaped around the seasons of the year in Paris and the revolutionary calendar created by poet and playwright Philippe-Francois-Nazaire Fabre who choose names for the days and weeks reflecting events on in nature: Fructidor was the month of fruit, Pluviôse, the season of rain.
The book touches on everything from Danton to Mitterand, via Hemingway and Claude Debussy. A pleasant, gentle read for anyone fond of Paris.
The book touches on everything from Danton to Mitterand, via Hemingway and Claude Debussy. A pleasant, gentle read for anyone fond of Paris.
October 31, 2021
Based on the title and flyleaf I expected a totally different book than what it was. Once I reframed my expectations it became more enjoyable but not one of my favorite works of this author. I enjoy his writing but this was a scattershot series of essays largely unrelated to each other. It was two or three different premises shoved into one book .
His beautiful writing kept me finishing the book, but only just.
His beautiful writing kept me finishing the book, but only just.
April 28, 2024
4 stars until the last number of chapters. The governing history folx was boring to be but I absolutely loved the rest of the book—how the quotes or intros at the beginning fit into the chapters—and sometimes not right away—leaving you wondering how and when they would. I also adore short chaptered books (possibly my ADHD tendencies.) This was my first foray into John Baxter books and definitely leaves me wanting to explore his others.
July 19, 2024
Any expectation the title of the book may conjure up about its contents is a disservice.
Read this book if you want to explore a collection of the research the author did (possibly even for this book, hard to say) and witness how he blends these themes with random quotes and references from names you’ll likely recognise.
The writing is good, but it’s hard to get past the content woefully pompous content.
Read this book if you want to explore a collection of the research the author did (possibly even for this book, hard to say) and witness how he blends these themes with random quotes and references from names you’ll likely recognise.
The writing is good, but it’s hard to get past the content woefully pompous content.
March 26, 2019
I did not know that the French Revolution brought about things besides headless aristocracy...including the metric system and a bonkers calendar. In theory, it was a great idea and made for a unique memoir-fun to read. The quirky history and culture kept my attention. He writes in a beautiful way about a place I love.
October 17, 2019
I love to read fictional books set in Paris. This book is non-fiction and gives some interesting history about the changes made to the calendar in France after the French Revolution. It is a bit (or a lot) of history interspersed with bits of interesting events, meals and so on in the author's life. The book is easy to read since the chapters are quite short and interesting.
April 2, 2020
A combination of French history and sociology, what's not to love! I was worried it would be a paler version of A Year in Provence, but this was cool! A lot of info about the Republican calendar of 1793, the revolution, etc. (so interesting), but Baxter goes back and forth in time and across continents, kept me hopping. Whew!
Read
May 14, 2022I expected this book to be a memoir about living in Paris, but it turned out to be part memoir, part history, and part cultural observations. It was very enjoyable to read (although I could have done with a bit less information about the author’s love life). I haven’t read anything else quite like it and would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in France.
April 11, 2019
Another entry from my favorite Paris tour guide. I knew the French Revolution gave us the metric system but I never did get the new calendar. Still don't, but it was fun to read about. Also learned how Lobster Thermidor got it's name
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews