March 20, 2012

Recent Arrival: Great Journeys

This comprehensive array includes nearly every trip imaginable: from scenic railways, to conquerors' trails, to ancient trade routes and pilgrimages. Four pages and at least one full-page photo are devoted to each journey, while statistics sidebars give distances, suggested time commitments, best times of the year to go, and special tips. Breathtaking and impressive in all its facets, this wanderlust-inspiring volume is a feast for both mind and eye.

March 9, 2012

Recent Arrival: The Most Beautiful Walk in the World

In this enchanting memoir, acclaimed author and long-time Paris resident John Baxter remembers his yearlong experience of giving "literary walking tours" through the city. Baxter sets off with unsuspecting tourists in tow on the trail of Paris's legendary artists and writers of the past. Along the way, he tells the history of Paris through a brilliant cast of characters: the favorite cafés of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce; Pablo Picasso's underground Montmartre haunts; the bustling boulevards of the late-nineteenth-century flâneurs; the secluded "Little Luxembourg" gardens beloved by Gertrude Stein; the alleys where revolutionaries plotted; and finally Baxter's own favorite walk near his home in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.