History
Richard Cobb , The French and their Revolution (John Murray, UK). A selection of expert essays on the French Revolution, with a personal touch.

Alfred Cobban , A History of Modern France (3 vols: 1715-99, 1799-1871 and 1871-1962; Penguin/Viking). Complete and very readable account of the main political, social and economic strands in French - and inevitably Parisian - history.

Norman Hampson , A Social History of the French Revolution (Routledge). An analysis that concentrates on the personalities involved. Its particular interest lies in the attention it gives to the sans-culottes , the ordinary poor of Paris.

Christopher Hibbert , The French Revolution (Penguin, UK). Good, concise popular history of the period and events. Days of the French Revolution (Quill, US) is a compelling account of the details, complexities, personalities, and events surrounding the French Revolution.

Alistair Horne , How Far from Austerlitz (Macmillan/Griffin). An excellent, modern history of Napoleon, catching him at his zenith and recounting his subsequent demise.

Colin Jones , The Cambridge Illustrated History of France (Cambridge UP). A political and social history of France from prehistoric times to the mid-1990s, concentrating on issues of regionalism, gender, race and class. Good illustrations and a friendly, non-academic writing style.

Lissagaray , Paris Commune (o/p). A highly personal and partisan account of the politics and fighting by a participant. Although Lissagaray himself is reticent about it, history has it that the last solitary Communard on the last barricade - in the rue Ramponneau in Belleville - was in fact himself.

Karl Marx , Surveys from Exile (Penguin); On the Paris Commune (Pathfinder, US). Surveys includes Marx's speeches and articles at the time of the 1848 Revolution and after, including an analysis, riddled with jokes, of Napoleon IlI's rise to power. Paris Commune - more rousing prose - has a history of the Commune by Engels.

Robert Rowell Palmer , Twelve Who Ruled (Princeton UP). Another account of the French Revolution, so readable it is almost entertaining.

Angelo Quattrocchi , Beginning of the End: France, May 1968 (Verso Books). First-hand account of the disobedience of students that sparked the riots of factory workers and finally revolution, from the pen of an Italian journalist stationed in Paris to cover the events as they unfolded.

Paul Webster , Pétain's Crime: The Full Story of French Collaboration in the Holocaust (Papermac/Ivan R. Dee). The fascinating and alarming story of the Vichy regime's more than willing collaboration with the German authorities' campaign to implement the "final solution" in occupied France, and the bravery of those, especially the Communist resistance, who attempted to prevent it. A mass of hitherto unpublished evidence.

Theodore Zeldin , A History of French Passions , 1848-1945 (2 paperback vols; Oxford UP). French history tackled by theme, such as intellect and taste - a good read.

 

Society, culture and politics
John Ardagh , France Today (Penguin). Comprehensive journalistic overview, covering food, film, education and holidays as well as politics and education. Good on detail about the urban suburbs and the shift there from the centre of Paris.

Roland Barthes , Mythologies and Selected Writings (both Vintage/Noonday). The first, though dated, is a classic: a brilliant description of how the ideas, prejudices and contradictions of French thought and behaviour manifest themselves, in food, wine, cars, travel guides and other cultural offerings. Barthes' piece on the Eiffel Tower doesn't appear, but it's included in the Selected Writings , published in the US by Noonday as A Barthes Reader (ed Susan Sontag).

Simone de Beauvoir , The Second Sex (Vintage). One of the prime texts of Western feminism, written in 1949, covering women's inferior status in history, literature, mythology, psychoanalysis, philosophy and everyday life.

Denis Belloc , Slow Death in Paris (Quartet, UK). A harrowing account of a heroin addict in Paris. Not recommended holiday reading, but if you want to know about the seamy underbelly of the city, this is the book.

James Campbell , Paris Interzone (Minerva, UK). The feuds, passions and destructive lifestyles of the Left Bank writers of 1946-60 are evoked here. The cast includes Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Samuel Beckett, Boris Vian, Alexander Trocchi, Eugene Ionesco, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Nabokov and Allan Ginsberg.

Richard Cobb , Paris and Elsewhere (ed David Gilmour; John Murray, UK). Selected writings by the acclaimed historian of the 1789 Revolution reveal his unique encounter with the French.

Robert Cole , A Traveller's History of Paris (Windrush Press/Interlink). This brief history of the city from the first Celtic settlement to today is an ideal starting point for those wishing to delve into the historical archives.

Christopher Flood and Laurence Bell (eds), Political Ideologies in Contemporary France (Pinter/Cassell). Beginners' guide to the current political trends in France.

Gisèle Halim , Milk for the Orange Tree (Quartet). Born in Tunisia, daughter of an Orthodox Jewish family, Halim ran away to Paris to become a lawyer defending women's rights, Algerian FLN fighters and all unpopular causes. A gutsy autobiographical story.

Tahar Ben Jelloun , Racism Explained to my Daughter (New Press). An honest and straightforward account of the racial tensions in France as seen through the eyes of its Moroccan-born author. An international best-seller.

Peter Lennon , Foreign Correspondents: Paris in the Sixties (Picador/McClelland & Stewart). Irish journalist Peter Lennon went to Paris in the early 1960s unable to speak a word of French. He became a close friend of Samuel Beckett and was a witness to the May 1968 events.

François Maspero , Roissy Express (Blackwell/W. W. Norton & Co.) with photographs by Anaïk Frantz. A "travel book" along the RER line B from Roissy to St-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse (excluding the Paris stops). Brilliant insights into the life of the Paris suburbs, and fascinating digressions into French history and politics.

Andrea Kupfer Schneider , Creating the Musée d'Orsay: The Politics of Culture in France (Pennsylvania State UP). Interesting and sometimes amusing account of the struggles involved in transforming the Gare d'Orsay into one of Paris's most visited museums. An original insight, revealing French attitudes towards such grand cultural projects.

Tyler Stovall , Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (Marnier/Houghton Mifflin). A well-researched and vivid account of the flight of African-American artists in the 1920s from a segregated and racist America to a welcoming Paris.

Tad Szulc , Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer (Da Capo). While musicologists may be disappointed by the lack of discussion of the works that made Chopin famous, others will revel in this exploration of his relationship with his friends - Balzac, Hugo, Liszt among them - and his lover, George Sand and their shared life in Paris.

William Wiser , The Great Good Place (o/p). An account of American expat women in Paris, from the Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, through to writer Edith Wharton, publisher Caresse Crosby, the sad socialite novelist's wife Zelda Fitzgerald and finally the singer Josephine Baker.

Theodore Zeldin , The French (Harvill). A coffee-table book without the pictures, based on the author's conversations with a wide range of people, about money, sex, phobias, parents and everything else.

Art, architecture and photography
Brassaï , Le Paris Secret des Années 30 (Gallimard, France). Extraordinary photos of the capital's nightlife in the 1930s - brothels, music halls, street cleaners, transvestites and the underworld - each one a work of art and a familiar world (now long since gone) to Brassaï and his mate, Henry Miller, who accompanied him on his nocturnal expeditions. This friendship with Miller is captured in his book Henry Miller: the Paris Years (Arcade; Timothy Bent, translator).

Robert Doisneau , Three Seconds of Eternity (Neues Publishing Co.). The famous Kiss in front of the Hôtel de Ville takes the front cover, but there's more to Doisneau than this. A collection chosen by himself of photographs taken in France, but mainly Paris, in the 1940s and 50s. Beautifully nostalgic.

Norma Evenson , Paris: A Century of Change, 1878-1978 (o/p). A large illustrated volume which makes the development of urban planning and the fabric of Paris an enthralling subject, mainly because the author's concern is always with people, not panoramas.

John James , Chartres (D. S. Brewer, UK). The story of Chartres cathedral, with insights into the medieval context, the character and attitudes of the masons, the symbolism, and the advanced mathematics of the building's geometry.

William Mahder (ed), Paris Arts: The '80s Renaissance (o/p), Paris Creation: Une Renaissance (o/p). Illustrated, magazine-style survey of French arts. The design and photos are reason enough in themselves to look it up.

Willy Ronis , Belleville Ménilmontant (o/p). Misty black-and-white photographs of people and streets in the two "villages" of eastern Paris in the 1940s and 50s.

Judy Rudoe , Cartier: 1900-1939 (British Museum Press/Harry N. Abrams). Marvellous photos of the world-renowned Paris-based jeweller's creations including Art Deco necklaces, rings, bracelets and brooches, among other objets d'art .

Vivian Russell , Monet's Garden (Frances Lincoln/Stewart, Talson & Chang). An exceptional book illustrated with sumptuous colour photographs by the author, old photographs of the artist and reproductions of his paintings.

Edward Lucie-Smith , Concise History of French Painting (o/p). If you're after an art reference book, then this will do as well as any, though there are of course dozens of other books available on particular French artists and art movements.

Yves St-Laurent , Forty Years of Creation (Distributed Art Publishers). Glossy pages of the best of Y-S-L's stylish fashion photography and creations.

Anthony Sutcliffe , Paris - An Architectural History (Yale UP). Excellent overview of Paris's changing cityscape, as dictated by fashion, social structure and political power.

 

Cookery
Linda Dannenberg , Paris Bistro Cooking (C. N. Potter). Poule au Pot and Rum Baba among other delicious French traditional dishes as cooked by some of Paris's best bistros.

Alain Ducasse , Flavours of France (Artisan) and L'Atelier of Alain Ducasse: The Artistry of a Master Chef and His Protégés (John Wiley & Sons). The charismatic culinary entrepreneur offers a tour of the gastronomy of France and some of the secrets of his successful kitchen, combining breezy prose with inspirational photos.

Nicolle Meyer & Amanda Smith , Paris in a Basket: Markets: The Food and The People (Konemann). Would be little more than a glossy coffee table book if it didn't capture the sights, smells, anecdotes, and recipes of Paris's open-air markets with so much aplomb.

Patricia Wells , Joël Robuchon - Cuisine Actuelle (Macmillan, UK). Paris's most famous chef reveals some basic and some more advanced recipes from his restaurant.

 

Paris in literature
British/American Shari Benstock , Women of the Left Bank: Paris, 1900-1940 (Univ of Texas, US). Follows the lives and creativity of two dozen American, British and French women who moved to Paris and dared to be different. ...
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