Travelers' Tales Paris: True Stories

Travelers' Tales Guides

by James O'Reilly (Editor), Larry Habegger (Editor), Sean Joseph O'Reilly (Editor)

Paris is one city that everyone should endeavor to know over the course of a lifetime, and not just in one or two visits. The City of Light has bestowed on millions the gift of the incandescent present, an image or experience into which all life is condensed and reflected upon for years to come. Travelers' Tales Paris captures the romance of the world's favorite city through stories that entertain, inform, and touch the heart. John Gregory Dunne reveals the manic pleasures of driving in the city's chaotic traffic. Joseph Diedrich and Katya Macklovich explore romantic encounters that could only happen here. Herbert Gold and David Applefield take aim at the nostalgia surrounding The Left Bank, one reveling in its literary past, the other urging the visitor to reach out to a new, modern Paris in the outlying area of Montreuil. Tim O'Reilly and Coleman Lollar evoke the appeal of unexpected tourist sites, and Marcel Laventurier recounts his harrowing escape from the Nazis on a train bound for occupied Paris in a tale you will never forget. "If Paris is the main dish, here is a rich and fascinating assortment of hors d'oeuvres." - Peter Mayle

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, France

424 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2002

About the author

James O'Reilly has been a traveler since infancy, and a storyteller almost as long. Born in Oxford, England, in 1953, he savors the early memory of walking as a five-year-old boy across the tarmac at Shannon Airport in Ireland and gazing up at the huge triple tails of the now-defunct Constellation aircraft. The smell of fuel and Irish fog and the amazing sight above him must have made a deep impression because he's been traveling willy-nilly ever since. After emigrating from Ireland to the United States, he grew up in San Francisco, where he was schooled by Jesuits, nuns and assorted yogis and eccentrics in the '60s. His eclectic education was formed as much by growing up in a large Roman Catholic family where he was the second of seven children as it was by being an omnivorous reader who was studying Eastern religion and meditation by his early teens. He traveled a great deal with his family - to Ireland, England, Scotland, and Canada - before heading off to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where, among other things, he spent a semester in Salamanca, Spain.

At Dartmouth, James met his good friend Larry Habegger, with whom he has collaborated since 1982 on projects ranging from radio shows to mystery serials, newspaper and magazine columns to world adventure travel. Since 1985, O'Reilly and Habegger have co-authored the nationally-syndicated travel column "World Travel Watch." In 1993, they co-founded the publishing company Travelers' Tales with James's brother Tim, and have since worked on more than 100 books together, winning many awards for excellence, including the prestigious Lowell Thomas award for outstanding travel book. James has been an active member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) since 1990, and is a former board member of the Tibet Information Network.

James has visited over forty countries and lived in four. Among his favorite travel memories are visiting headhunters in Borneo, rafting the legendary Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, enjoying a meal cooked by blowtorch in Tibet, and hanging out laundry with nuns in Florence. He has made traveling with his own family a priority, and together he and his wife and three daughters have roamed all over Europe. He lives in Palo Alto, California, where he is usually conspiring to be somewhere else.

Reviews

[Ricardo Ribeiro · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's always tricky to read a book which is a collection of short stories from different authors. Most probably we will like some, feel neutral about others and hate a few. That's what it happens, only there were to fee to be loved. Also I didn't like at all the quotations. I found them extremely confusing and breaks to the reading.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was in our apartment in Paris last summer and I started it then but didn't finish it before we left. So Laura sent me her copy recently. As always with collections like this some entries were better than others.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were a good preview for my move to Paris.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed a lot of these pieces, but some of them weren’t that compelling and a decent number didn’t age very well.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of the Travelers' Tales books are an excellent introduction to another culture, but with enough detail that it provides insight into places to see. For the organized traveler, any of the books would be recommended to start your list of things to do -- even before you buy your Fodor's or Dorling Kindersley guides. For those who are more spontaneous, they'll give you a sense of excitement about where you're going if you read them on the six-hour flight.

Each of the books is an essay and tells a story about the destination from the point of view of students, travelers and those who have lived in the country for years. It is accented with notes by the editors in sidebars to many essays. When my daughter said that she'd be traveling to Turkey, it was the first thing that I bought her.

[Meme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful variety of impressions of Paris which takes the reader right to the spot. If you love Paris and France, it's a must read.

[Laura Bang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good collection from Travelers' Tales.