From the Publisher
One of the smartest nonfiction titles for summer reading ... Baxter tracks both the city’s history and the many celebrated figures who have savored the art of walking in one of the world’s most beautiful capitals.” — Christian Science Monitor
“A lovely book ... Full of unexpected pleasures ...Parisians claim that walking walking around Paris is an art form in itself, and Baxter proves them right. — Chicago Tribune
“A man with a great appreciation of what makes Paris tick.” — Newsday
“We are the beneficiaries of John Baxter’s considerable, vivid love for the expatriate life in Paris. ... The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is as close as a reader can get to the feel of a languid spring walk along Baron Haussmann’s boulevards.” — Los Angeles Times
“Anyone who loves Paris and loves to walk will feel this book was written just for them. ... Charming.” — USA Today
“A splendid memoir ... Reading The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is the next best thing to a Paris vacation.” — Boston Globe
“Fabulous . . . the perfect companion for anyone inspired to hop over to France after seeing Midnight in Paris” — NPR.org
Christian Science Monitor
One of the smartest nonfiction titles for summer reading ... Baxter tracks both the city’s history and the many celebrated figures who have savored the art of walking in one of the world’s most beautiful capitals.
|Los Angeles Times
We are the beneficiaries of John Baxter’s considerable, vivid love for the expatriate life in Paris. ... The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is as close as a reader can get to the feel of a languid spring walk along Baron Haussmann’s boulevards.
Chicago Tribune
A lovely book ... Full of unexpected pleasures ...Parisians claim that walking walking around Paris is an art form in itself, and Baxter proves them right.
USA Today
Anyone who loves Paris and loves to walk will feel this book was written just for them. ... Charming.
Boston Globe
A splendid memoir ... Reading The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is the next best thing to a Paris vacation.
NPR.org
Fabulous . . . the perfect companion for anyone inspired to hop over to France after seeing Midnight in Paris
Newsday
A man with a great appreciation of what makes Paris tick.
USA Today
Anyone who loves Paris and loves to walk will feel this book was written just for them. ... Charming.
Chicago Tribune
A lovely book ... Full of unexpected pleasures ...Parisians claim that walking walking around Paris is an art form in itself, and Baxter proves them right.
Los Angeles Times
We are the beneficiaries of John Baxter’s considerable, vivid love for the expatriate life in Paris. ... The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is as close as a reader can get to the feel of a languid spring walk along Baron Haussmann’s boulevards.
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
A splendid memoir . . . Reading The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is the next best thing to a Paris vacation. —Boston Globe
Kirkus Reviews
Memoirist, biographer and translator Baxter (Von Sternberg,2010, etc.) turns his sensuous walking tours of Paris into the written word, with gratifying results.
The author does what he does best—short chapters that explore some engaging nugget of Parisian culture or history, in a pace and voice that are both gentle. Goaded by a friend to put his voluminous knowledge of Paris to use as a walking-tour guide to literary and other artistic haunts, he accepted the challenge and found a calling. Baxter enjoys amusing and being amused, and he has pocketfuls of colorful background stories that create atmosphere. He is of the Henry Miller school—give him the boulevards known for sex and crime, food and drink, the opium dens and the absinthe bars, the art galleries selling salacious photographs—and he pulls it all off with an air of charm and calm. On his tours, the plans are open-ended; he digresses as needs be, perhaps into a story about how the lock to his house broke when he was about to leave for Christmas Eve at his relatives', or the curious interlude with a performance artist claiming to have known Marlene Dietrich. Readers can feel his elation at being out and about, experiencing the antique weather in the small passageways, cruising down Haussmann's sidewalks, dropping into cafés famous and obscure and exploring anything Hemingway. He is theflâneur's flâneur: "Visitors didn't wanttheirParis. They wantedmine. Plenty of time when they got home to read Flaubert or a history of the French Revolution. What they wanted now was to reach out and touch the living flesh—to devour and be devoured."
Walking through Paris with Baxter is really what bien-être is all about.
