As I start back to teaching classes today, this little book is perfect to put in my bookbag in case I have spare time to read and want to escape to Paris with The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris by Edmund White. I love the cover with the photo of the fountain (is that Luxemburg Gardens?) and the drawings of the chairs. I can feel those chairs waiting for the Parisians who will fill them on the first sunny day. Here's the intro:Paris is a big city, in the sense that London and New York are big cities and that Rome is a village, Los Angeles a collection of villages and Zurich a backwater.
If I didn't already want to read this book, the intro would not lure me.
Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays. Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's my teaser from page 34:
Paris is a world meant to be seen by the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail. The loiterer, the flaneur, has a long distinguished pedigree in France.I'm looking forward to this stroll through Paris, since I can't visit in person until I finish sending my kids to college.
