Inspired by Kaydee's question, I would like to gather my own reading list for Paris. Currently, I am reading the Da Vinci Code. I would like to hear from you Francophiles on the books related to Paris you would recommend. The books can be either fiction or non-fiction. But I won't read Hugo again.

"The fall of Paris" by Ilya Ehrenburg (1943).

An epic. One can find it on the Internet for 4-5 dollars (try www.abebooks.com).
Ehrenburg was a Russian writer in the times of the Soviet Union. One can argue with his politics, but the book is quite powerful.

Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

bubba,
You'll find some Paris books in the SlowTrav France planning section HERE.

Embedded in this SlowTalk thread are more Paris book recommendations.

There's at least one more thread on this subject but with Search not working I can't find it right now. (I know the thread is there somewhere because I commented on David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day" about adjusting to life in France!)

Thank you, everyone, for the recommendations.

Ahh. Search is working for me this morning! Here are a few threads about books on France:

this one

and

this one
this one

and

this one

and

this one

It has been only a few years ago that Zola's two books , now my favorites, were translated into English. "The Ladies'Paradise"and"The Belly of Paris."

I may be repeating a recommendation from one of the linked threads, but absolutely read "Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. He is a writer for the New Yorker who spent a couple of years living in Paris with his wife and children (in fact, his daughter was born during his stay). The book is a loosely arranged series of essays about life in Paris (in the 1990s) from an expatriate's point of view, and covers everything from French obstetricians (who wear sunglasses and dress in black, none of this patsy white-coat stuff) to the art on sugar packets to trying to join a gym to realizing that his pre-schooler had a more "native" take on the French language than he did. Funny and poignant in all the right places.

I also loved "Paris was Yesterday" by Janet Flanner -- a collection of her "Letter from Paris" columns that appeared in the New Yorker from 1925 - 1939. I found this a great book to read while commuting on the train, as all the pieces are pretty short (like the bits that appear in the "Talk of the Town" section of the New Yorker today), and the book is therefore quite easy to read in little 5-minute bursts. Overall, a wonderful portrait of Paris in the years between the wars. (Probably out of print, but I seem to run across this one in used book stores all the time.)

In keeping with the period, I'd also recommend A.J. Liebling's "Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris". This book is a memoir of the 1926 - 27 school year that Liebling spent studying at the Sorbonne. Fortunately for us, he apparently spent more time eating, drinking (wine), and hanging out in cafés checking out women than he did in class. I learned more about French food in general from this book than just about any other single tome I can think of. And the life he was able to manage on his student means was enough to make me weep: his budget was $200 a month, at a time when the exchange rate was 26 francs to the dollar, and 6 francs bought a meal and half a bottle of wine...

And lest you think I read only New Yorker writers (Liebling went on to be a food writer for the New Yorker), I will also recommend "A French Affair" by Mary Blume, former columnist for the International Herald Tribune. These are mostly cultural musings collected from her 30+-year career at the paper; some date back to the early 1960s, but most are from the 1980s - 90s.

Finally, I highly recommend "Paris: The Collected Traveler", edited by Barrie Kerper. The editor has a whole "Collected Traveler" series, with separate editions for Provence, Morocco, Tuscany/Umbria, and Paris, and I recommend them all. (Well, ok, I haven't read the Morocco one, but I have all the others!) They all follow the same format: The first section, titled "Renseignments Pratiques", is an exhaustive A-Z compendium of practical information you might need for your trip, covering everything from Accommodations (she doesn't recommend specific places to stay, but rather, how to go about finding a place to stay that might suit
you), to African-Americans in Paris, to Boat and Barge Cruises, to Dog Poop (this IS Paris, after all), to Periodicals (current and back issues you might have missed), to Telephones, to Weather -- with LOTS in between! Mostly she steers you to a variety of resources (books, agencies, websites, institutions, local phone numbers, etc.) that might be helpful, but she tosses in lots of her own invaluable tips, too. This covers the first 50 or so pages of the book. The remainder is an anthology of essays and articles on Paris, reprinted from a wide variety of publications -- everything from FRANCE Magazine to The New York Times to Salon.com to Gourmet -- and covering topics as diverse as fashion, chocolate, gardens, and politics. Not all of the pieces were my cup of tea, but I enjoyed the wide variety, as well as the many suggestions for further reading sprinkled throughout the book.

Ok, this is a start! I just realized I've given you nothing but non-fiction -- but despite what you might now think, I read novels, too (in fact, we read The DaVinci Code during our last Paris trip, which was terrific timing!), and will try to get to some of those tomorrow.

While neither as sophisticated as Gopnik, nor as starry-eyed as Mayle, Sarah Turnbull's book "Almost French" (emphasis on Almost!) is an irresistable page-turner. Turnbull found love and happiness in France in general, and Paris in particular, but it was no small feat dealing with the French, their language, their idiosynchrasies, their massive paperwork. So many of the expatriate books gloss over the hard parts of moving to a new country; Turnbull does not. Reading about her dog-walking struggles, dinner party misery and new Rue Montorgueil flat makes her ultimately successful move all that much more of an accomplishment.

What a fantstic group you are! I love all the suggestions. It's great hearing from others about book selection since I have a very limited vision when it comes to selecting a book.

I've finished The Da Vinci Code, and am now moving on to the "Moveable Feast". I actaully have a pretty complete Hemingway collection consisted of 2nd hand purchases. Hemingway being one of my favorite, my wife spoils me with her ebay acquisitions. But I've never read the "Moveable Feast".

Thanks again.