A Year in Paris audiobook

There may be no better guide through Paris than John Baxter. He is an outsider and an insider, able to look at Paris with both the objective viewpoint of an onlooker and the heart of a Paris lover who has been invited to partake of the secret joys of the Paris life. He is a researcher and a writer who can combine the history of Paris with present-day Paris, the intellectualism of Paris with the bawdiness of Paris, the glory of Paris with the horrors of Paris, the reality of Paris with the mystery of Paris.Baxter formats A Year in Paris around the seasons, and he travels between the past and the present day to create a rich portrait of the city. Baxter draws upon the new calendar created by ne-er-do-well Philippe Fabre d'Eglantine after the peasant revolt of 1789 to underpin the seasonal rhythms of the book, and he shares story-after-little-known-fascinating-story about Paris people, Paris places, Paris events.It's a joy and a delight of a book.

I loved the back and forth weaving of the revolutionary calendar with the Paris of present time. As a student of the French Revolution, this was an innovative take of historical and current culture/events. Yes there are some mistakes but on all it was a fun read

A combination of French history and sociology, what's not to love! I was worried it would be a paler version of A Year in Provence, but this was cool! A lot of info about the Republican calendar of 1793, the revolution, etc. (so interesting), but Baxter goes back and forth in time and across continents, kept me hopping. Whew!

Such a charming book to start the year, built around the calendar redesign implemented during the “worst excesses” of the French Revolution. Lots of great Parisian atmosphere, and Baxter’s wonderful tongue-in-cheek style. A must for Francophiles.

An ex-pat in Paris has a different experience during each season. He also brings in how they tried to change the calendar during the Revolution without consulting with the farmers and it backfired big time.

Wonderful book. The juxtaposition between history and life in Paris is a delight.

A little blub about Modesto was fun to see, amongst the rambling tales of the City of Light. A perfect fit for a season of insomnia.

delight ful

Love Baxter’s way of weaving facts and tidbits into life living in Paris.

Baxter has written numerous books on Paris, and there is some overlap of the information he includes in each one. But he always manages to find a different approach and to provide new material and interesting facts about modern and historical Paris as each book appears, albeit with increasingly bizarre structures. The title to this book (his most recent offering —2019) is a little misleading. Yes, the author provides facts and impressions about seasonal characteristics and events in modern Paris. But he presents them in a rather disjointed fashion, and intersperses them with chapters on the history of the French Revolutionary calendar as devised in 1792 by Fabre d’Eglantine, a protégé of the brutish and ruthless Danton. The 12 reconstructed months of the 1792 calendar, all based on seasons and nature’s phenomena, and the calendar’s lingering influence on French culture comprise a thread that loosely connects the chapters. Also, Baxter’s short, italicized anecdotes at the start of each chapter seem meaningless, or disconnected at best. So, the book has an oddball format. Nevertheless, in his typical fashion, Baxter does work in a number of interesting facts about the City of Light: the charm of Place Dauphine on Ile de la Cité; the statue of the Zouave on the edge of the Seine which serves as a gauge to rising river levels; the cryptic poem “Bâteau Ivre” by mid-19th-century symbolist Arthur Rimbaud, the doomed 1871 Commune, the scandals brought about by Nijinsky and Stravinsky at the Paris ballet, 1911-13, etc., etc., The tidbits of Parisian history are entwined everywhere and are often provocative. At the end of the book, Baxter includes a list of “important dates and events” that are observed throughout a Parisian year. I was particularly intrigued with the several scheduled “fashion weeks” or haute couture and the Museum Night May 19 when may museums remain open late, and the Salon du Chocolat Oct. 28-Nov.1.

I love Paris and Baxter had a beautiful, poetic experience.