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Parisians
- An Adventure History of Paris
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
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Editorial reviews
Simon Vance does Paris, in an outstanding narrative performance of one of the most unusual and unconventional history books ever propped before a studio microphone. Graham Robb’s Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris, is also a work of genius.
“The adventures that follow were written as a history of Paris recounted by many different voices,” writes Robb. “The idea was to create a kind of mini-Human Comedy of Paris, in which the history of the city would be illuminated by the real experiences of its inhabitants.” The 19 stories chosen by Robb span the period before the French Revolution to the Clichy-sous-Bois riots of 2005. In contrast to Balzac’s monumental and sprawling 100 stories and novels of The Human Comedy, Robb’s Parisians is a meticulously researched, intricately detailed nonfictional work of art, a historical novel of a unique type, a dazzlingly kinetic masterpiece of adventure revealing an intriguingly human history of the City of Light.
Vance brings to Parisians a dynamic mastery of narrative expression, perfect timing, and his great set of narrative techniques that often go unnoticed. But perhaps that’s the point. Some narrators are more vocally demonstrative than others. Vance’s voice is expressive in quite subtle ways. His Parisians narration is a journeyman performance similar to the stone masons that applied their talents and skills to the construction of Notre Dame. Vance shapes the finely wrought architecture of Robb’s extraordinarily constructed collection of stories. Parisians the audiobook would not have enriched the print book’s exacting aesthetics without Vance.
Robb is a remarkably acute artist. He unfolds a good number of the Parisians stories as if by stealth. At the beginning of the chapter “Lost”, a woman is referred to only as ‘she’, and it is only gradually that we learn who she is and what the consequences will be of her getting lost. Some things about some of the storylines are revealed only at the end. In “One Night at The Palais-Royal” an 18-year-old artillery lieutenant has his first sexual experience with a woman and later writes about it. After he pens his experience we learn who this lieutenant is. Robb compares and contrasts over the book’s periods of time. There are assassination attempts on a French President and a President-to-be. Are the attempts real or fake? Charles de Gaulle is covered with fragments of mortar from an unknown enemy after World War II. Marcel Proust is showered with fragments of metal in a German bombing of Paris during World War I. Who is the braver, Proust or de Gaulle? Who is histrionic and who coolly indifferent? And who is one of the more fascinating individuals in Parisians?
I don’t want to give away anything more reviewers of the print edition of Parisians have spilt the beans. Don’t pick them up. This is a great audiobook. Listen before any further third party descriptions mare your experience. David Chasey
Publisher's summary
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.
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.
An aristocratic 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, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Boheme, Proust, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt on himself in Notre Dame) - these and many more make up Robb's cast of characters. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel.
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Award-winning journalist and author Simon Winchester takes readers on a personal tour of the Balkans. Combining history and interviews with the people who live there, Winchester offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex issues at work in this chaotic region. Unrest in the Balkans has gone on for centuries. A seasoned reporter, Winchester visited the region twenty years ago. When Kosovo reached crisis level in 1997, Winchester thought a return visit to the beleaguered area would help to make sense out of the awful violence.
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Loved this-Great combo:Story and History Explained
- By Jeremy on 07-10-14
By: Simon Winchester
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The Bedlam Detective
- By: Stephen Gallagher
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Sebastian Becker, a former Pinkerton man, lives in England and investigates wealthy eccentrics who may be too insane to care for their own affairs. He is asked to investigate rich landowner Sir Owain, but arrives to discover two young girls have been murdered, and it is not the first time children have come to harm in this small town.
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Satisfying!
- By Margaret on 03-26-12
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Iberia
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 37 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history.
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Michener's Masterpiece
- By ahusmc on 09-14-17
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Night Soldiers
- By: Alan Furst
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times bestselling author Alan Furst is widely recognized as master of the historical spy novel. Furst’s works are vivid evocations of long-forgotten heroes and feature plots that unfold to the inexorable cadence of history. Night Soldiers is a simultaneously thrilling and illuminating tale of espionage set in 1934.
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Best Alan Furst novel!
- By Placeholder on 04-27-11
By: Alan Furst
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Istanbul
- Memories and the City
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.
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Terrible pronunciation
- By K. Jaynes on 02-25-18
By: Orhan Pamuk
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Sovietistan
- Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan
- By: Erika Fatland
- Narrated by: Jill Rolls
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan became free of the Soviet Union in 1991. But though they are new to modern statehood, this is a region rich in ancient history, culture, and landscapes unlike anywhere else in the world. Traveling alone, Erika Fatland is a true adventurer in every sense. In Sovietistan, she takes the listener on a compassionate and insightful journey to explore how their Soviet heritage has influenced these countries, with governments experimenting with both democracy and dictatorships.
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Outstanding book
- By George MP on 04-24-22
By: Erika Fatland
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The Cut Out Girl
- A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found
- By: Bart van Es
- Narrated by: Bart van Es
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Bart van Es left Holland for England many years ago, but one story from his Dutch childhood never left him. It was a mystery of sorts: A young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war and after? So began an investigation that would consume Bart van Es's life and change it.
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a powerful & unique work on the Holocaust
- By D. Littman on 03-06-19
By: Bart van Es
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Travels in Siberia
- By: Ian Frazier
- Narrated by: Ian Frazier
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the 40-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs. The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles of every kind....
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I Loved This Book
- By Sara on 01-05-14
By: Ian Frazier
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The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
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Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
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Stasiland
- Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
- By: Anna Funder
- Narrated by: Denica Fairman
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In Stasiland, Anna Funder tells extraordinary stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship, and of those who worked for its vicious secret police, the Stasi. She meets Miriam, who as a 16-year-old was accused of trying to start World War III. She visits the regime’s cartographer, a man obsessed to this day with the Berlin Wall, then gets drunk with the legendary “Mik Jegger” of the east, once declared by the authorities “no longer to exist.”
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A Great Achievement
- By Sil A. on 08-11-21
By: Anna Funder
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Zoo Station
- John Russell WWII Spy, Book 1
- By: David Downing
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent over a decade in Berlin, where his son lives with his mother. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as World War II approaches, he faces having to leave his son as well as his girlfriend of several years, a beautiful German starlet. When an acquaintance from his old communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he is unable to resist the offer.
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Overall great listen!
- By Patricia on 02-28-24
By: David Downing
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The City of Falling Angels
- By: John Berendt
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil returns to give us an intimate look at the "magic, mystery, and decadence" of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.
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Do Yourself a Favor and Skip This Book!
- By AUDIBLE on 10-08-05
By: John Berendt
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Schindler's List
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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An “extraordinary” (New York Review of Books) novel based on the true story of how German war profiteer and factory director Oskar Schindler came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. In this milestone of Holocaust literature, Thomas Keneally, author of The Book of Science and Antiquities and The Daughter of Mars, uses the actual testimony of the Schindlerjuden — Schindler’s Jews — to brilliantly portray the courage and cunning of a good man in the midst of unspeakable evil.
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really well done
- By Neil H. Greenberg on 03-09-19
By: Thomas Keneally
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London
- The Biography
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 32 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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London: The Biography is the pinnacle of Peter Ackroyd's brilliant obsession with the eponymous city. In this unusual and engaging work, Ackroyd brings the listener through time into the city whose institutions and idiosyncrasies have permeated much of his works of fiction and nonfiction. Peter Ackroyd sees London as a living, breathing organism, with its own laws of growth and change.
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Great Book
- By Joann on 01-04-21
By: Peter Ackroyd
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Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favorite Parisian street, offering an homage to street life and the pleasures of Parisian living. While many cities suffer from the leveling effects of globalization, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. On this street, the patron saint of France was beheaded and the Jesuits took their first vows.
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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.
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Very well researched, but difficult to follow
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Two years ago, Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, near the banks of a river that once marked the southern boundary of the legendary Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land served as a buffer between Scotland and England. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state.
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A must read for Armstrongs
- By Veronica Armstrong on 06-25-19
By: Graham Robb
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The Streets of Paris
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For hundreds of years, the City of Light has set the stage for larger-than-life characters-from medieval lovers Heloïse and Abelard to the defiant King Henri IV to the brilliant scientist Madame Curie, beloved chanteuse Edith Piaf, and the writer Colette. In this book, Susan Cahill recounts the lives of 22 famous Parisians and then takes you through the seductive streets of Paris to the quartiers where they lived and worked: the scenes of their greatest triumphs and tragedies, their favorite cafes, bars, and restaurants, and the places where they found inspiration and love.
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I feel there should be a pdf.
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France’s history through story and vignette
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The Discovery of France
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Very well researched, but difficult to follow
- By Aw on 05-23-19
By: Alistair Horne
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The Debatable Land
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- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
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Two years ago, Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, near the banks of a river that once marked the southern boundary of the legendary Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land served as a buffer between Scotland and England. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state.
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A must read for Armstrongs
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By: Graham Robb
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The Streets of Paris
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For hundreds of years, the City of Light has set the stage for larger-than-life characters-from medieval lovers Heloïse and Abelard to the defiant King Henri IV to the brilliant scientist Madame Curie, beloved chanteuse Edith Piaf, and the writer Colette. In this book, Susan Cahill recounts the lives of 22 famous Parisians and then takes you through the seductive streets of Paris to the quartiers where they lived and worked: the scenes of their greatest triumphs and tragedies, their favorite cafes, bars, and restaurants, and the places where they found inspiration and love.
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I feel there should be a pdf.
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A Bite-Sized History of France
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From the cassoulet that won a war to the crêpe that doomed Napoleon, from the rebellions sparked by bread and salt to the new cuisines forged by empire, the history of France is intimately entwined with its gastronomic pursuits. A witty exploration of the facts and legends surrounding some of the most popular French foods and wines by a French cheesemonger and an American academic, A Bite-Sized History of France tells the compelling and often surprising story of France from the Roman era to modern times.
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Great stories, but...
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Paris to the Moon
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Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner: in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
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Wish this wasn't abridged!!
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By: Adam Gopnik
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Twilight of the Belle Epoque
- The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends Through the Great War
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Mary McAuliffe's Dawn of the Belle Epoque took the listener from the multiple disasters of 1870-1871 through the extraordinary re-emergence of Paris as the cultural center of the Western world. Now, in Twilight of the Belle Epoque, McAuliffe portrays Paris in full flower at the turn of the 20th century, where creative dynamos such as Picasso, Matisse, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Proust, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, and Isadora Duncan set their respective circles on fire with a barrage of revolutionary visions and discoveries.
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Fun, immersive listen; but the narrator...
- By SBG on 02-22-23
By: Mary McAuliffe
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Dawn of the Belle Epoque
- The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
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- Unabridged
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A humiliating military defeat by Bismarck's Germany, a brutal siege, and a bloody uprising - Paris in 1871 was in shambles, and the question loomed, "Could this extraordinary city even survive?" Mary McAuliffe takes the listener back to these perilous years following the abrupt collapse of the Second Empire and France's uncertain venture into the Third Republic. By 1900, Paris had recovered, and the Belle Epoque was in full flower, but the decades between were difficult, marked by struggles.
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A massacre
- By BL on 10-02-22
By: Mary McAuliffe
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When Paris Sizzled
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- By: Mary McAuliffe
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Overall
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Performance
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When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior.
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Informative, but no sizzle
- By OzEnigma on 06-01-17
By: Mary McAuliffe
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The Bonjour Effect
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- By: Julie Barlow, Jean-Benoit Nadeau
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- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow spent a decade traveling back and forth to Paris as well as living there. Yet one important lesson never seemed to sink in: how to communicate comfortably with the French, even when you speak their language. In The Bonjour Effect, Jean-Benoît and Julie chronicle the lessons they learned after they returned to France to live, for a year, with their twin daughters. They offer up all the lessons they learned and explain the most important aspect of all: the French don't communicate, they converse.
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Terrible French pronunciation
- By CA on 01-24-19
By: Julie Barlow, and others
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How Paris Became Paris
- The Invention of the Modern City
- By: Joan DeJean
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
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At the start of the 17th century, Paris was known for a few monuments, but it had not yet put its brand on urban space. Like many European cities, it was still emerging from its medieval past. But within a century, Paris would be transformed into the modern and mythic city we now know. Most people associate the signature characteristics of Paris with the 19th century. Joan DeJean demonstrates that the Parisian model for urban space was in fact invented two centuries earlier, when the first full design for the French capital was implemented.
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The text refers to illustrations
- By Mary on 06-29-14
By: Joan DeJean
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A History of France
- By: John Julius Norwich
- Narrated by: John Julius Norwich
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
John Julius Norwich - called a "true master of narrative history" by Simon Sebag Montefiore - returns with the book he has spent his distinguished career wanting to write, A History of France, a portrait of the past two centuries of the country he loves best. Beginning with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the first century BC, this study of French history comprises a cast of legendary characters - Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Joan of Arc, and Marie Antionette, to name a few - as Norwich chronicles France's often violent, always fascinating history.
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Kings and Wars
- By Awake Tex on 08-22-19
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Other Paris
- By: Luc Sante
- Narrated by: Luc Sante
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Drawing on testimony from a great range of witnesses - from Balzac and Hugo to assorted boulevardiers, rabble-rousers, and tramps - Sante, whose thorough research is matched only by the vividness of his narration, takes the listener on a whirlwind tour.
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horrible reading
- By Sergio Remon on 03-28-19
By: Luc Sante
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Paris, City of Dreams
- Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Creation of Paris
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Tim H. Dixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed historian Mary McAuliffe vividly recaptures the Paris of Napoleon III, Claude Monet, and Victor Hugo as Georges Haussmann tore down and rebuilt Paris into the beautiful City of Light we know today. Paris, City of Dreams traces the transformation of the City of Light during Napoleon III’s Second Empire into the beloved city of today.
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Superb
- By Cheri Stocking on 02-17-23
By: Mary McAuliffe
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I'll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do)
- Living in a Small Village in Brittany
- By: Mark Greenside
- Narrated by: Jonathan Beville
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
When Mark Greenside - a native New Yorker living in California, political lefty, writer, and lifelong skeptic - is dragged by his girlfriend to a tiny Celtic village in Brittany at the westernmost edge of France in Finistere, or what he describes as "the end of the world," his life begins to change. In a playful, headlong style, and with enormous affection for the Bretons, Greenside shares how he makes a life for himself in a country where he doesn't speak the language or understand the culture.
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Narration and story are transportive.
- By Sandi Campbell on 01-25-22
By: Mark Greenside
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Paris
- The Novel
- By: Edward Rutherfurd
- Narrated by: Jean Gilpin
- Length: 38 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Internationally best-selling author Edward Rutherfurd has enchanted millions of readers with his sweeping, multigenerational dramas that illuminate the great achievements and travails throughout history. In this breathtaking saga of love, war, art, and intrigue, Rutherfurd has set his sights on the most magnificent city in the world: Paris. Moving back and forth in time across centuries, the story unfolds through intimate and vivid tales of self-discovery, divided loyalties, passion, and long-kept secrets of characters both fictional and real, all set against the backdrop of the glorious city.
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Paris: The Novel (is that helpful?)
- By Mel on 05-07-13
What listeners say about Parisians
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anne
- 05-06-18
Guide to Paris from Another Slant
Graceful prose and a superlative narration (I have a crush on Simon Vance) combine to beautifully present a view of Paris from unique guides - the experiences of historical figures presented by an inspired writer. The most appealing aspect of The Parisians is the sense of the immense and rich history of the place living in the streets and buildings and even the air. It offers the reader the same opportunity for intimacy and lived experience that a good novel would. For the would-be traveller, I would highly recommend this book over any "travel guide" to Paris.
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- Murasaki
- 05-13-10
What a journey!
Robb brings the City of Light to life in a unique and fascinating way, through the lives of people who have lived there. Napoleon, Mme. Zola, Hitler, and others unknown but remarkable. It makes one want to take the book to Paris and trace the stories. Wonderful, and beautifully read.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Jenn Cohen
- 01-30-24
Enjoyable backstories
Hard to follow sometimes as dates moved forwards and backwards but the stories filled in parts of other common and major historical events with interesting details.
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- M. R. Davidsaver
- 05-24-19
history told through random events
I enjoyed the stories but I would have enjoyed the printed version more; there were far too many street names I couldn't spell to look up.
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- Sean
- 06-02-11
Interesting at first
Interesting and compelling at first, the book gets very uneven at the end. I enjoyed parts of this book very much, and skimmed through others.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Myrna Minkoff
- 10-11-10
Difficult....but worth it
I completely understand the frustration of folks who find this book to be "too much." I had the same reaction to Robb's "Discovery of France," which does not have an audio version. I posted a 3-star review at Amazon taking some hard shots. But I always had the disquieting feeling that the book was simply difficult, not at all unworthy, the opposite, in fact. That feeling won out, over time, and ultimately I took down my carping review.
As of now, I have only the Audible version of this latest Robb book. It is difficult to casually follow. IT IS DIFFICULT TO CASUALLY FOLLOW. But for those with the inclination, the payoff is huge.
There is no need to be judgmental here. Some people -- most people, perhaps -- are mildly interested and wish to be amused and informed while remaining in a casual relationship to the material. Nothing at all wrong with that, but it does not work for this book. At least, not for me. I regard it as more like a college course; I plan to read the book and to listen more than once. For those who have that level of interest, it is a dazzling tale. To me, it is more than worth the effort...big investment, big payoff.
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24 people found this helpful
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- Christine
- 06-28-10
This audiobook is so good!
I was delighted by this audiobook. Was that in part because I have been to Paris a number of times, have a passable knowledge of French history and literature, can speak basic French, and am an unashamed Francophile? Would I have felt the same if Graham Robb had written a book called Berlinners, Madridians or Muscovites? I think that for people who feel a connection to things French or Parisienne this book will be pure Heaven
Simon Vance is superb as a reader on this audiobook. His tone changes to match the various moods of the narrative, and his French accent is impeccable for place and peoples' names. He reads rather quickly, so it does require some concentration so as to keep with the flow of the tale. I am not sure that this is the book to listen to when caught in frantic peak-hour traffic, but it is immensely rewarding with serious listening time.
This audiobook is so good.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Katherine E. Ledford
- 06-10-21
Don't be scared away.
Brilliant book. A history told through stories, so prepare to appreciate its storytelling qualities, but don't expect a straight "history." Not every story captured me, but the vast majority did, and I learned something from each and every one of them. And I surely know more about Paris than I did before. (I've listened to several histories of Paris, so I'm not a novice). One story in this collection is a script, with camera directions, for a "movie.", It's one of the most poignan and important in this impressive and creative history. If those last two adjectives strike you as oxymorons, I challenge you to give this book a chance. Now I'm longing for the "story history" of Rome, London, Venice, Moscow, Madrid, Barcelona, etc. Get busy, people!
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- Acteon
- 06-26-15
Delightful, informative, fascinating
Would you consider the audio edition of Parisians to be better than the print version?
Probably. I generally prefer audio since reading is hard on my eyes.
Which character – as performed by Simon Vance – was your favorite?
Simon Vance is good as usual. I give him 5 stars despite mispronounced French (at first surprising because of his generally excellent pronunciation of French sounds). French names are notoriously difficult and a foreigner almost inevitably makes mistakes. A few instances come to mind; I cite them not in a critical spirit but so that listeners should not be misled.
"Champs de Mars”: final s is not silent (Mars, a Roman god, is not a French word).
Saint-André des Arts: t in "art" is silent.
Auteuil is pronounced o-tou[as in English 'touch']-y, not o-toy-y (true of all instances of -euil).
Montagne Sainte-Geneviève: -ene- (and -enne- in other words) are pronounce 'en' as in English, without reference to the French nasal en [‘aun’] sound
Porte des Lilas: s silent [in most words the final s is silent, but there are exceptions such as the city Reims]
Boulevard Haussmann: Hau pronounced ‘o’ (not ‘ao’ or ‘hao', though the origin of the name does in a sense justify pronouncing it the German way, but in Paris nobody would understand)
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
The deportation of Jews and Jewish children.
I also wanted to cry at the wanton burning of hundreds of years of Parisian archives during the Commune of 1871.
Any additional comments?
This book is particularly interesting to those who already have an interest in French history and/or know or love Paris.
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3 people found this helpful
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- E.K.
- 11-08-12
The parisians that shaped city of lights
Parisians is a collection of anecdotes covering Paris, from the revolution to the 21st century, by Graham Robb. The author presents a human perspective on essential events, figures and places. Each story is written in a different style, reflecting the theme and characters. This is pulled of excellently, only the story about Juliette Greco, written in screenplay style, fails to engage.
It is interesting and well written – almost poetic at times. An excellent read for those inclined to history or those just fascinated by the city of lights
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1 person found this helpful