The New York Times bestseller: the secrets of the City of Light, revealed in the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten―by the author of the acclaimed The Discovery of France. This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten. A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. A well-dressed woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map―there were no reliable ones at the time―Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, the photographer Marville, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Boheme, Proust, Adolf Hitler touring the occupied capital in the company of his generals, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt in Notre Dame)―these and many more are Robb’s cast of characters, and the settings range from the quarries and catacombs beneath the streets to the grand monuments to the appalling suburbs ringing the city today. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel. 16 pages of full-color illustrations

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Paris was known for isolated monuments but had not yet put its brand on urban space. Like other European cities, it was still emerging from its medieval past. But in a mere century Paris would be transformed into the modern and mythic city we know today.Though most people associate the signature characteristics of Paris with the public works of the nineteenth century, Joan DeJean demonstrates that the Parisian model for urban space was in fact invented two centuries earlier, when the first complete design for the French capital was drawn up and implemented. As a result, Paris saw many changes. It became the first city to tear down its fortifications, inviting people in rather than keeping them out. Parisian urban planning showcased new kinds of streets, including the original boulevard, as well as public parks and the earliest sidewalks and bridges without houses. Venues opened for urban entertainment of all kinds, from opera and ballet to a pastime invented in Paris, recreational shopping. Parisians enjoyed the earliest public transportation and street lighting, and Paris became Europe's first great walking city. A century of planned development made Paris both beautiful and exciting. It gave people reasons to be out in public as never before and as nowhere else. And it gave Paris its modern identity as a place that people dreamed of seeing. By 1700, Paris had become the capital that would revolutionize our conception of the city and of urban life.

DK Eyewitness travel guides: award-winning guidebooksFind your corner of Paris with this essential travel guide to this beautiful city, designed to help you create your own unique trip and to transport you there before you’ve even packed your case – get a bird’s eye view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower, admire the art at the Louvre and the Pompidou Centre, or take a stroll along the Canal St-Martin.  The DK Eyewitness Guide to Paris covers the must-see sights and the hidden corners, so you won’t miss a thing.• Gorgeous, all-new color photography so you can imagine yourself there• Reasons to love Paris: iconic landmarks, mouth-watering cuisine, lively local markets and haute couture – what will yours be?• See Paris from a different angle - 26 pages of fresh ideas for exploring the city• A year-long calendar of events in Paris gives a selection of local events and festivals for all seasons• Sturdy, laminated pull-out city map gives transport information and Metro map• Expert advice covers the practical stuff: get ready, get around and stay safe• Over 15 detailed, color maps help you navigate the city with ease• Expert tips to make memories that last – where to snap and share the perfect photo, take in stunning views and escape the crowds• The most authentic places to stay, eat, drink and shop• Easy-to-follow walks and itineraries take you on a tour of each area, with plenty of eat and drink stops en route.• Hand-drawn illustrations show the inside of the must-see attractions, including Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, the Sacré-Coeur and the Panthéon• Covers Île de la Cité and Île St-Louis; the Marais; Bastille and Oberkampf; République and Canal St-Martin; Belleville and Ménilmontant; La Villette; Montmartre and Pigalle; Opéra and Grands Boulevards; Louvre and Les Halles; Eiffel Tower and Invalides; Champs-Élysées and Chaillot; St-Germain-des-Prés; Latin Quarter; Jardin des Plantes and Place d’Italie; Montparnasse and Jardin du Luxembourg; plus sights beyond the city.DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Paris is a detailed, easy-to-use guide designed to help you create your own unique trip.DK Eyewitness: winner of the Top Guidebook Series in the Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards 2017. Staying for longer? Try our DK Eyewitness guide to France.About DK Eyewitness Travel: For 25 years, DK’s beautifully practical Eyewitness guides have been combining inspiring ideas and expert advice with easy-to-read maps and vivid photography to inform and enrich your holiday. This year they have been given a stunning new look that you will love even more.  DK is the world’s leading illustrated reference publisher, producing beautifully designed books for adults and children in over 120 countries.

Lonely Planet French Phrasebook & Dictionary is your handy passport to culturally enriching travels with the most relevant and useful French phrases and vocabulary for all your travel needs. Ask about tucked-away vineyards, bargain with local farmers at the market or order wine like a professional; all with your trusted travel companion. With language tools in your back pocket, you can truly get to the heart of wherever you go, so begin your journey now!Get More From Your Trip with Easy-to-Find Phrases for Every Travel Situation! Feel at ease with essential tips on culture, manners, idioms and multiple meanings Order with confidence, explain food allergies, and try new foods with the menu decoder Save time and hassles with vital phrases at your fingertips Never get stuck for words with the 3500-word two-way, quick-reference dictionary Be prepared for both common and emergency travel situations with practical phrases and terminology Meet friends with conversation starter phrases Get your message across with easy-to-use pronunciation guides Inside Lonely Planet French Phrasebook & Dictionary: Full-colour throughout User-friendly layout organised by travel scenario categories Survival phrases inside front cover for at-a-glance on-the-fly cuesCovers Basics - time, dates, numbers, amounts, pronunciation, reading tips, grammar rules Practical - travel with kids, disabled travellers, sightseeing, business, banking, post office, internet, phones, repairs, bargaining, accommodation, directions, border crossing, transport Social - meeting people, interests, feelings, opinions, going out, romance, culture, activities, weather Safe Travel - emergencies, police, doctor, chemist, dentist, symptoms, conditions Food - ordering, at the market, at the bar, dishes, ingredients The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet French Phrasebook & Dictionary , a pocket-sized comprehensive language guide, provides on-the-go language assistance; great for language students and travellers looking to interact with locals and immerse themselves in local culture.About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet is the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, and has been connecting travellers and locals for over 25 years with phrasebooks for 120 languages, more than any other publisher! With an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community, Lonely Planet enables curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves.

Ernest Hemingway’s classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, now available in a restored edition, includes the original manuscript along with insightful recollections and unfinished sketches.Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway’s most enduring works. Since Hemingway’s personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined the changes made to the text before publication. Now, this special restored edition presents the original manuscript as the author prepared it to be published. Featuring a personal Foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest’s sole surviving son, and an Introduction by grandson of the author, Seán Hemingway, editor of this edition, the book also includes a number of unfinished, never-before-published Paris sketches revealing experiences that Hemingway had with his son, Jack, and his first wife Hadley. Also included are irreverent portraits of literary luminaries, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford, and insightful recollections of Hemingway’s own early experiments with his craft. Widely celebrated and debated by critics and readers everywhere, the restored edition of A Moveable Feast brilliantly evokes the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the unbridled creativity and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.

Packed with facts, anecdotes, and insight, A Traveller's History of Paris offers a complete history of the city and the people who have shaped its destiny. Illustrated with line drawings and historical maps.

In this luminous portrait of Paris, the celebrated historian gives us the history, culture, disasters, and triumphs of one of the world’s truly great cities. While Paris may be many things, it is never boring. From the rise of Philippe Auguste through the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIV (who abandoned Paris for Versailles); Napoleon’s rise and fall; Baron Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris (at the cost of much of the medieval city); the Belle Epoque and the Great War that brought it to an end; the Nazi Occupation, the Liberation, and the postwar period dominated by de Gaulle--Horne brings the city’s highs and lows, savagery and sophistication, and heroes and villains splendidly to life. With a keen eye for the telling anecdote and pivotal moment, he portrays an array of vivid incidents to show us how Paris endures through each age, is altered but always emerges more brilliant and beautiful than ever. The Seven Ages of Paris is a great historian’s tribute to a city he loves and has spent a lifetime learning to know."Knowledgeable and colorful, written with gusto and love.... [An] ambitious and skillful narrative that covers the history of Paris with considerable brio and fervor."—LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW

In 1890, Claude Monet bought a house at Giverny in Normandy. Soon he had laid out the first of the three studios in which he could paint. Now the garden that was to be a constant source of inspiration for those paintings claimed all his attention. In 1893, work started on the excavation of the famous pond that he would plant with water lilies, and over which he would build a Japanese bridge festooned with wisteria.Richly illustrated with photographs taken as the seasons unfold, this guide takes us on a tour of the house and gardens, inviting us to explore the settings in which Monet and his family spent their daily lives, from the iconic yellow dining room to the famous salon-studio. Adrien Goetz leads us through the gardens laid out by the father of Impressionism, where we can admire the dazzling planting schemes and successive flowerings that inspired the paintings that now hang in the world's greatest galleries and museums: drifts and avenues of iris, tulips and narcissi, wallflowers, peonies and forget-me-nots, roses and cascades of clematis and wisteria, not forgetting the legendary water lilies.

Los Angeles Times Book Prize FinalistFrom bestselling author Ross King, a brilliant portrait of legendary artist Claude Monet and the story of his most memorable achievement, the water lilies.Claude Monet is perhaps the world’s most beloved artist, and among all his creations, the paintings of the water lilies in his garden at Giverny are most famous. Seeing them in museums around the world, viewers are transported by the power of Monet’s brush into a peaceful world of harmonious nature. Monet himself intended them to provide “an asylum of peaceful meditation.” Yet, as Ross King reveals in his magisterial chronicle of both artist and masterpiece, these beautiful canvases belie the intense frustration Monet experienced at the difficulties of capturing the fugitive effects of light, water, and color. They also reflect the terrible personal torments Monet suffered in the last dozen years of his life. Mad Enchantment tells the full story behind the creation of the Water Lilies, as the horrors of World War I came ever closer to Paris and Giverny, and a new generation of younger artists, led by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, were challenging the achievements of Impressionism. By early 1914, French newspapers were reporting that Monet, by then 73 and one of the world’s wealthiest, most celebrated painters, had retired his brushes. He had lost his beloved wife, Alice, and his eldest son, Jean. His famously acute vision--what Paul Cezanne called "the most prodigious eye in the history of painting"--was threatened by cataracts. And yet, despite ill health, self-doubt, and advancing age, Monet began painting again on a more ambitious scale than ever before. Linking great artistic achievement to the personal and historical dramas unfolding around it, Ross King presents the most intimate and revealing portrait of an iconic figure in world culture--from his lavish lifestyle and tempestuous personality to his close friendship with the fiery war leader Georges Clemenceau, who regarded the Water Lilies as one of the highest expressions of the human spirit.

During his career, French artist Claude Monet (1840–1926) used the Seine as his testing ground for documenting on canvas the transformative effects of light and atmosphere. He produced many ethereal, evocative, and poetic paintings of the meandering river, which remained his favorite subject and also provided solace throughout his life.   This beautiful book brings together fifty of Monet’s most glorious paintings of the Seine, from the early works focusing on Argenteuil, Le Havre, and Paris, to the works on Lavacourt and Vétheuil, and culminating with the stunningly beautiful works that make up the acclaimed series Mornings on the Seine, which depicts an intimate stretch of the river near Giverny. These paintings not only offer special glimpses into Monet’s creative process but also introduce the concept of the series—a concept that would influence the art of future generations. Monet and the Seine features gorgeously reproduced images and engaging essays by four distinguished scholars.  

Featuring 34 of the most picturesque villages from the five departements of Normandy, this book also presents special sections on the churches, chateaux, harbours and coastline. A varied region of open country and woodland, it includes Mont-St-Michel and Monet's garden at Giverny.

The updated Green Guide Normandy accompanies travelers as they explore this bucolic region of France with its picturesque patchwork fields, quaint fishing villages, high chalk cliffs and wide sandy beaches. Michelin's famed star-rating system pinpoints Norman highlights from iconic Mont-St-Michel to WWII's D-Day landing beaches. Suggested places to eat and stay for a variety of budgets, driving and walking tours, respected maps, color photos and evocative area descriptions complete the picture for a successful visit.Attractions reviewed and rated, using Michelin's celebrated star-rating system, from the 3-star dramatic high cliffs and crashing waves of Étretat to the 2-star art-inspiring village of Giverny where Impressionist artist Claude Monet lived for many years.Walk-throughs of major museums, galleries, churches and attractions; includes illustrations and floor plans.Sidebars throughout the guide on such topics as the construction of Mont-St-Michel over the centuries to the herring fishing tradition.Drive around the elegant seaside resort of Deauville, or through the heart of traditional rural Normandy with its pastures, thatched cottages, manor houses and apple orchards. Stroll through the streets of old Caen for glimpses of Gothic and Renaissance buildings and architectural features. Michelin walking and driving tours give clear, comprehensive directions and maps to keep you on track.Comprehensive illustrated sections on 21st century Normandy, nature, history, art and culture, all written by experts in their fields.Detailed visitor information given for every attraction―opening hours, entry fees, tour times, phone, website.Michelin area and city maps to help visitors find their way.Practical advice includes transportation information, road regulations, events calendar, plus hotel and restaurant recommendations for a variety of budgets.Companion publications: MICHELIN Guide France for a selection of the best restaurants and hotels in the region. Michelin France Road and Tourist Map no. 721 (scale 1:1,000,000) and/or Michelin Normandy Road and Tourist Map no. 513 (scale 1:200,000) for navigating and planning.

Over 75 years have passed and the D-Day landings have lost none of their impact. Even today the vestiges of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall speak of the huge undertaking necessary for the Allies to gain a foothold in Normandy. In this beautiful new full-color book, the reader goes “on-site” to the sacred battleground from its scarred medieval villages to the remains of modern means of destruction. The huge armada that attacked from Britain left behind many signs of their passage: from the huge caissons of the mulberry harbor around Arromanches, the gun emplacements at Longues and Merville, to the multitude of hardware used as memorials—tanks, artillery, pillboxes—and the many graves and cemeteries that honor those who died on both sides. It is in memory of the dead that much of what can be seen on the ground survives, but as the last few survivors reach their 90s, a new audience requires information about the events of the past that can only come from seeing the ground where the battle was fought. Today, the beaches are a fascinating mixture of the new and the old, including the new visitors’ center at Colleville and the renovation and expansion of the Utah Beach museum—even as further new memorials jostle with the older sites that have changed little in 75 years.The Normandy Battlefields details what can be seen on the ground today using a mixture of media to provide a complete overview of the campaign. Maps old and new highlight what has survived and what hasn’t; then-and-now photography allows fascinating comparisons with the images taken at the time—particularly the aerial views—and computer artwork provides graphic details of things that can’t be seen today.The book describes the area from Cherbourg to Le Havre by way of the key D-Day locations, providing a handbook for the visitor and an overview for the armchair traveler. It covers, wherever possible, the forces from both sides and the memorials to those young men who fought so many years ago.

Stephen E. Ambrose’s D-Day is the definitive history of World War II’s most pivotal battle, a day that changed the course of history.D-Day is the epic story of men at the most demanding moment of their lives, when the horrors, complexities, and triumphs of life are laid bare. Distinguished historian Stephen E. Ambrose portrays the faces of courage and heroism, fear and determination—what Eisenhower called “the fury of an aroused democracy”—that shaped the victory of the citizen soldiers whom Hitler had disparaged.Drawing on more than 1,400 interviews with American, British, Canadian, French, and German veterans, Ambrose reveals how the original plans for the invasion had to be abandoned, and how enlisted men and junior officers acted on their own initiative when they realized that nothing was as they were told it would be. The action begins at midnight, June 5/6, when the first British and American airborne troops jumped into France. It ends at midnight June 6/7. Focusing on those pivotal twenty-four hours, it moves from the level of Supreme Commander to that of a French child, from General Omar Bradley to an American paratrooper, from Field Marshal Montgomery to a German sergeant. Ambrose’s D-Day is the finest account of one of our history’s most important days.

Mort Rosenblum, a celebrated foreign correspondent, invites us aboard his fifty-four-foot launch tied up in the center of Paris and introduces us to the characters who share his life along the river, ranging from eccentric movie stars and reclusive novelists to barge families just scraping by. He then hauls in the bow line for an unforgettable tour of the river itself from its source to its mouth. The Secret Life of the Seine is a love story between man and boat and the river that they live on, a discourse on the sensual beauty of France and the art of living well. In the tradition of A Year in Provence, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Paris to the Moon, here is what Garry Trudeau called "a moveable feast [with] a top speed of five knots—fast enough for fun, languid enough for dreaming. Take a trip you'll never take: This is what books are for."

The title brings to mind a luxury vessel on the most glamorous river in the world, but readers expecting to learn about the high life in France will be in for a surprise. In this charming memoir, painter and novelist Wharton (Birdy) instead gives us literally the nuts and bolts of building a houseboat, along with generous dollops of humor and local color. As a struggling artist in Paris with his schoolteacher wife and four children, Wharton decided to build his own boat after visiting that of an acquaintance in the mid-1970s. He recounts the family's adventures in making their dream come true. They gave up their Paris flat and moved onto the boat, which docked 12 miles downriver from Paris at Le Port Marly. There they spent the next 25 years adding the finishing touches. The most poignant moment comes at the wedding of oldest child, Kate, aboard ship. The author reminds us that she, her husband and their two children were to perish in 1988 in an Oregon fire, a tragedy he recounted in Ever After. Some readers might have preferred learning more about life aboard the boat than about the details of building it, but this work will satisfy Wharton devotees and Francophiles alike.

A vividly-rendered portrait of both the rise of Impressionism and of the artist at the center of the movement, Claude and Camille is above all a love story of the highest romantic order.In the mid-nineteenth century, a young man named Claude Monet decided that he would rather endure a difficult life painting landscapes than take over his father’s nautical supplies business in a French seaside town. Against his father’s will, and with nothing but a dream and an insatiable urge to create a new style of art that repudiated the Classical Realism of the time, he set off for Paris. But once there he is confronted with obstacles: an art world that refused to validate his style, extreme poverty, and a war that led him away from his home and friends. But there were bright spots as well: his deep, enduring friendships with men named Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro, Manet—a group that together would come to be known as the Impressionists, and that supported each other through the difficult years. Even more illuminating was his lifelong love, Camille Doncieux, a beautiful, upper-class Parisian girl who threw away her privileged life to be by the side of the defiant painter and embrace the lively Bohemian life of their time.  His muse, his best friend, his passionate lover, and the mother to his two children, Camille stayed with Monet—and believed in his work—even as they lived in wretched rooms and often suffered the indignities of destitution. But Camille had her own demons—secrets that Monet could never penetrate—including one that when eventually revealed would pain him so deeply that he would never fully recover from its impact.

Giles Foden, the prizewinning author of The Last King of Scotland, delivers a mesmerizing blend of fact and fiction in this novel about how human beings deal with uncertainty. Five days before D-day, a team of Allied scientists is charged with making an accurate weather forecast for the landings. Henry Meadows—a young math prodigy from the Met Office—is sent to Scotland to uncover Wallace Ryman’s revolutionary system for understanding turbulence, one of the last great mysteries of modern physics. But Ryman is a reclusive pacifist who stubbornly refuses to divulge his secrets, and when Henry meets Gill—Ryman’s beautiful wife—events, like the weather, begin to spiral out of control.

Swiftmaps is proud to partner with Smithsonian Journeys to bring a new and exciting World Map series to the American marketplace. Featuring eye-catching bold and vivid colors complemented with rich vintage tan ocean tones that will make this the perfect reference piece --- sure to stand-out and highlight any home or business wall. The precise detail and digital accuracy shows color-matching visual shaded 3D relief and other physical features without sacrificing the maps readability. Now printed on high-quality 80 lb. paper and professionally FOLDED in a compact 8x10 inch size. FEATURES: 1) Africa centered allowing viewers to see continents complete and intact 2) Clearly labeled country and city names for easy location 3) Latitude and longitude indications 4) Shaded relief of ocean and land topography 4) Desirable Miller Projection. The Smithsonian Journeys wall map series serve not only as a handy reference piece, but as an eye-catching accent for any room or office. NOTE: each map is professionally folded to 8x10 inches and when unfolded the map is 24 inches high and 36 inches wide.