Thrust
into the unlikely role of professional "literary walking tour" guide,
an expat writer provides the most irresistibly witty and revealing tour of
Paris in years.
In
this enchanting memoir, acclaimed author and long- time Paris resident John
Baxter remembers his yearlong experience of giving "literary walking
tours" through the city. Baxter sets off with unsuspecting tourists in tow
on the trail of Paris's legendary artists and writers of the past. Along the
way, he tells the history of Paris through a brilliant cast of characters: the
favorite cafés of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce; Pablo
Picasso's underground Montmartre haunts; the bustling boulevards of the
late-nineteenth-century flâneurs; the secluded "Little Luxembourg"
gardens beloved by Gertrude Stein; the alleys where revolutionaries plotted;
and finally Baxter's own favorite walk near his home in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
The
Most Beautiful Walk in the World was the perfect book to read when planning a
return visit to Paris. I wanted unique insights and the perspective of someone
who intimately knows this city. And how better to know it than one who walks
its streets? Although he covers some famous Parisian residents throughout
history, the artists and writers, it is the not-so-famous characters he writes
about that captured my imagination –the somewhat sinister Hugo, the
larger-than-life three Texans who in an unlikely twist ends up falling in love
with French food and liquor, the rich friend shopping casually for a Matisse.
Like a charming host full of intriguing facts and funny anecdotes, Baxter
treats the reader, his guest, to glimpses of Paris seldom seen. There is also a
very valuable appendix which lists some valuable tips for making the most out
of one’s trip.
“…[E]very
Parisian, and everyone who comes to know Paris, “discovers his or her own ‘most
beautiful walk.’ A walk is not a parade or a race. It’s a succession of instants, any one of
which can illuminate a lifet ime. What
about the glance, the scent, the glimpse, the way the light just falls … the ‘beautiful’
part? No tour guide or guidebook tells
you that.”