Paris is one city that you should endeavor to know over the course of a lifetime, and not just in one or two visits. It is the center of the civilized universe, and it belongs to everyone—even to those who see it only in their dreams. The City of Light has bestowed on millions the gift of the incandescent present, an image or experience into which all life is condensed and reflected upon for years to come. Travelers’ Tales Paris captures the romance of the world’s favorite city through stories that entertain, inform, and touch the heart. John Gregory Dunne reveals the manic pleasures of driving in the city’s chaotic traffic. Joseph Diedrich and Katya Macklovich explore romantic encounters that could only happen here. Herbert Gold and David Applefield take aim at the nostalgia surrounding The Left Bank, one reveling in its literary past, the other urging the visitor to reach out to a new, modern Paris in the outlying area of Montreuil. Tim O’Reilly and Coleman Lollar evoke the appeal of unexpected tourist sites, and Marcel Laventurier recounts his harrowing escape from the Nazis on a train bound for occupied Paris in a tale you will never forget.

In this newly designed edition, acclaimed writers who have fallen in love with France--with the food, the land, the irrepressible French people--provide a mesmerizing literary tour of this special place. maps. Illustrations.

"We've collected useful and memorable stories to produce the kind of sampler we've always wanted to read before setting out. These stories will show you a spectrum of experiences to be had or avoided in Hong Kong"--Back cover

What happens when a Korean-American preacher’s kid refuses to get married, travels the world, and quits being vegetarian? She meets her polar opposite on an online dating site while sitting at a café in Paris, France and ends up in Paris, Maine, learning how to hunt. A memoir and a cookbook with recipes that skewer human foibles and celebrates DIY food culture, Deer Hunting in Paris is an unexpectedly funny exploration of a vanishing way of life in a complex cosmopolitan world. Sneezing madly from hay fever, Lee recovers her roots in rural Maine by running after a headless chicken, learning how to sight in a rifle, shooting skeet, and butchering animals. Along the way, she figures out how to keep her boyfriend’s conservative Republican family from “mistaking” her for a deer and shooting her at the clothesline.

What is it about Japan that so beguiles foreigners? It is a small country and yet an economic powerhouse, a land of great natural beauty -- from green-cloaked mountains to glistening rice paddies -- a place of intricate arts and crafts and amazing cuisine, and home to a people whose kindness and sensitivity surprise westerners at each turn. It is no wonder that Japan simultaneously astonishes, delights, and frustrates travelers, and the diverse tales in this book reveal the nation in all its contradictions: a place of tranquil temples and high-tech toilets, exquisite ancient inns and lurid love hotels, where electric baths sit beside indoor ski slopes, and cherry blossoms fall on kindly grandmothers, cynical salarymen, wise monks, and wild lovers alike. Gathered in this collection are pieces by several notable authors, each offering anecdotes that tell of encounters to be had or avoided, each with uncommon insight to enrich the traveler's experience.

“I’d rather go to France with Ina Caro than with Henry Adams or Henry James.”—Newsweek In one of the most inventive travel books in years, Ina Caro invites readers on twenty-five one-day train trips that depart from Paris and transport us back through seven hundred years of French history. Whether taking us to Orléans to evoke the visions of Joan of Arc or to the Place de la Concorde to witness the beheading of Marie Antoinette, Caro animates history with her lush descriptions of architectural splendors and tales of court intrigue. “[An] enchanting travelogue” (Publishers Weekly), Paris to the Past has become one of the classic guidebooks of our time.

This deluxe illustrated volume brings together tales of the world's most celebrated owners of Louis Vuitton luggage.

Erin Byrne captures the essence of France through unique and authentic experiences in Wings from Victory, her collection of stories about travel in one of the world's most alluring countries. Some or her experiences come through serendipity, others via good fortune, still others by accident. But each time, Erin takes the experience, digs deeper, and discovers meaning from it. Each story demonstrates in a different way this idea put forth by Joseph Campbell: The passage of the mythological hero may be overground, incidentally; fundamentally it is inward—into the depths, where obscure resistances are overcome and long lost powers are revivified. From Cézanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence to a tiny village in the Jura Mountains, from a cozy bistro on the Left Bank of Paris to a plain high above the Normandy beaches, Erin travels through France collecting stories, characters, tastes, and secrets that act as ingredients for change. She learns to trust her intuition after listening to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s advice. After gazing at van Gogh’s self-portrait, Erin finds a way to be more honest. This book is about the gifts we all glean from our travels, and will inspire readers to unwrap their own images and impressions in a new way.

Rife with misadventures, brushes with death, and moments of existential insight, The End of the World Notwithstanding is a hilarious yet reflective look at the emotional experiences that make everyday life exciting--and the physical ones that remind us we're lucky to be alive. I'm traveling alone, renting a cabin at a normally tranquil spot--that's called foreshadowing--on the banks of the Big Laramie River at the edge of the Medicine Bow National Forest. So begins Janna L. Goodwin's lighthearted collection of nail-biting stories, all true, and all of which fill the listener with wonder ... as in, "I wonder how any of us survives?" Encounters with wildfire, insects, house pets, weather, gravity, predators, bullies, and the most potent force of all--fear itself--unfold in remote landscapes of the American West (and Midwest); on the neon-splashed sidewalks of Hollywood; at a Catskills summer camp for actors; in the lavish apartment of a famous senator; in a Hawaiian beach condo; on the side of a mountain above the Mediterranean Sea; and far beneath the streets of Paris. Goodwin looks for and ultimately finds meaning (if not security) in a clear-eyed acknowledgment of our shared, human condition--and in laughter.

A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL Mavis Gallant is a contemporary legend, a frequent contributor to The New Yorkerfor close to fifty years who has, in the words of The New York Times, "radically reshaped the short story for decade after decade." Michael Ondaatje's new selection of Gallant's work gathers some of the most memorable of her stories set in Europe and Paris, where Gallant has long lived. Mysterious, funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, these are tales of expatriates and exiles, wise children and straying saints. Together they compose a secret history, at once intimate and panoramic, of modern times.