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Category Archives: Paris

Nov 30 2012

Give Books!

by lauralee

Christmas lights are going up and the temperature is dropping. I love this time of year. Curling up with a book by the fire – is there anything better?

Favorite activity.

As the frantic holiday shopping begins, as you sift through sweaters at J. Crew trying to figure out which one your brother might actually wear, and rack your brain for a gift for your sweetie that’s practical but still kinda romantic, take a minute to remember the best gift of all: books!

I’m pretty proud that my employer launched a Give Books campaign this year. We even enlisted booksellers and taste makers to share their top holiday picks. It’s a cause I believe in, so here are the books I recommend wrapping up and putting under the tree:

Gone Girl

Riveting, unpredictable, literally can’t-put-downable. Turns marriage completely inside out and switches perspectives between the wife and the husband, so appeals to men and women in equal measure. Can be devoured in a day or two.

Wild

This book will change your life. That is all.

Paris in Color

I blogged about the process of working on this title and even though it’s one of my own, I truly believe it is a gift that keeps giving. Anyone will love getting lost in these photos of Paris on a long winter’s night.

The Art of Fielding

I love baseball, and I loved college, and I love how this story is seeped in the nuances of both. I can think of so many people in my life – guys, girls, baseball fans, fans of The Secret History – who would enjoy this book.

The Year of Magical Thinking

There’s been a lot of sad news within my circle with year. Loss and illness and hard hard things. I’ve grown to understand that this is just part of life. Reading others’ perspectives on grief, love, faith, and grace can help us through these times when it’s impossible to even imagine a way through. Joan Didion’s book is one of the best (see also: Wild, above).

And what’s on my wish list? Here’s a few just in case Santa’s reading . . .

Give books!

Categories: Book reviews, Fiction, Memoir, Paris | No Comments »

Apr 17 2012

From My Desk: Paris in Color!

by lauralee

By now, you know about my love for Paris so you will understand my love for this new book Paris in Color.

One day about a year and a half ago, I stumbled upon the blog Little Brown Pen and was instantly smitten with Nichole Robertson’s “Paris Color Series.” I couldn’t stop scrolling through the beautiful images of Paris’s hidden corners and small delights – all organized by color.

I shared her work with some other folks here and they agreed that it would make for a stunning book. I reached out to Nichole, she was interested in the idea, and we began working together to make this project happen.

The book is very true to the work found on Nichole’s website, all the photographs grouped by color:

Bleu.

Mint (a color I’m currently obsessed with).

Brown – with towers of fromage. What’s not to love?

And look, under the jacket, a suprise festival of color on the casewrap. It’s details like this that can really make a printed book special. An effect that just can’t be replicated in digital form.

Nichole posted about her work and the book on the Chronicle blog yesterday. She also sells prints of the Paris Color Series in her online shop. (I have four hanging above my bed at home.) Oh yeah! She sells calendars, too. Here is the calendar hanging by my desk at work. (You can tell I’m just a teeny bit of a fan.)

It’s true that I’m dying to get to Paris for real, but Paris in Color is the next best thing.

Categories: Book reviews, Inspiration, Paris, Photography | 4 Comments »

Mar 28 2012

What I’m Reading: Paris, Paris

by lauralee

I picked this up while I was in New York over the weekend.

I’m forever dreaming about going to Paris.

I also happened to edit two Paris books in the past year, which just makes me want to go that much more.

My favorite line in the book so far (I’m only on page 12):

This place called Paris is at once the city of literature and film, an imagined land, a distant view through shifting, misty lenses, and the leftover tang of Jean-Paul Sartre’s cigarettes clinging to the mirrored walls of a Saint-Germain-des-Pres cafe. It’s also the city where I and more than two million others pay taxes, re-heel shoes, and shop for cabbages or cleaning fluids.

It just so perfectly reminds the reader that Paris is as dreamy and fabulous as all of us who have never been imagine it to be, but is also a place where real people live real life. Cleaning fluids and all.

Anyway, it’s constant rain here in S.F. so I’m happy to settle in for cozy week of Paris dreaming . . .

Categories: Book reviews, Memoir, Paris | No Comments »

Jul 28 2011

Midnight in Paris and The Paris Wife.

by lauralee

Robbie and I went to see Midnight in Paris.

I loved it. (This shot shows Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald as portrayed in the film.) I’ve already mentioned how I love Paris. Well, anyone who knows me knows I’m a big Fitzgerald fan and that my favorite book is The Great Gatsby. So seeing these two in the film tickled me to no end. (It didn’t hurt that we were at the Kabuki and I had a glass of red in hand.) The movie whirred me back to my English major days and reignited my complete infatuation with this period in history and literature. It was just a feel good movie all around.

Buzzing from the movie (and the red), I was eager to pick up The Paris Wife when I got home so I could stay in this world a little while longer. The novel is told from the perspective of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest’s first wife, and their time in Paris in the 20s. Gertrude Stein and the Fitzgeralds are prominent characters and the book takes us from when Ernest was 21 and undiscovered to when The Sun Also Rises was first published.

The writing isn’t fantastic, but the concept is so fun I didn’t really care. It’s a fast read and offers an interesting take on Hemingway as an artist and a husband; marriage; and the tricky pursuit of fame. It paints a vivid picture of life as an ex-pat in Paris back then, spent on train rides through the countryside, dancing to jazz, hunched over in cafes, mingling with the most influential people of the time, and drinking bottles and bottles of wine.

I’m stuck on the era and plan to re-read A Moveable Feast next. Get a little of the action firsthand.

Given all this, I’m pretty excited that the new Great Gatsby movie is currently in production, even though my dad says that none of the Great Gatsby movies are ever any good. I’ll totally go see it. I have a feeling we’ll see a surge of 20′s fashion given all the current attention on the era. Maybe the lingo will make a come back, too. Wouldn’t that just be the bee’s knees?

Categories: Paris | No Comments »

Jun 28 2011

Love. Paris.

by lauralee

I have a thing for Paris. (Even though I’ve never been.) I’m a sucker for the idea that it is the most romantic city on earth. That love is somehow in a warm baguette and an outdoor cafe chair.

I recently acquired a Paris photography book with Little Brown Pen for Chronicle. More on this project later, but it is full of whimsy, color, and happiness. It makes me feel good every time I work on it. Editors need projects like this.

The author, Nichole, tipped me onto the work of Irene Suchocki and this print grabbed me. I love dreamy, ethereal images. Photos that make me feel like everything would be calm and happy if I just stepped into them for a moment.

: All is Love (c) Irene Suchocki

What I would give to lay down right there in that forest and gaze up at the flowers and trees. To hear nothing but quiet nature sounds and watch “Love” flap around in the breeze.

She also photographs Paris.

: City of Love (c) Irene Suchocki

She does a pretty good job of maintaining my fantasy of Paris and love . . .

: Paris is a Feeling (c) Irene Suchocki

This last one is called Paris is a Feeling. If that’s true, maybe I’m already there. Maybe I never want to leave.

Categories: Paris, Photography | 1 Comment »