Paris, Paris

Swapping his native San Francisco for the Cityof Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-wayticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of across-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floorwalk-up garret near the Champs-Elysees to the old Montmartre haunts of thedoomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Pere-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriantalleys of the Luxembourg Gardens, and the aristocratic Ile Saint-Louismidstream in the Seine.Downie wound up living in the chic Marais district,married to the Paris-born American photographer Alison Harris, an equallyincurable walker and chronicler. Ten books and a quarter-century later, hestill spends several hours every day rambling through Paris and writing aboutthe city he loves. An irreverent, witty romp featuring thirty-one short prosesketches of people, places, and daily life, Paris, Paris: Journey into the Cityof Light ranges from the glamorous to the least-known corners andcharacters of the world's favorite city.