My husband’s belated 40th birthday treat was a short city break in Paris earlier this week. No sooner had I gotten home on Tuesday than I was sealing up my suitcase to fly to the States the following afternoon. It’s been quite the whirlwind week (make that few months), but now that things have quieted down a little, I have a chance to look back on the long weekend’s eating, sightseeing and reading. I’d been to Paris twice before: once just for an overnight en route to Milan in 2019, while my first and only proper trip was in early 2004.
That time I did all the touristy things like the Eiffel Tower, the Musée d’Orsay (though not the Louvre), Notre Dame and the site of the Bastille. A sign of how times have changed: nearly 20 years ago when I was at Père Lachaise cemetery, you could go right up to Oscar Wilde’s grave and add your lip-print to the many kisses on it. (There’s a photo of me and my study abroad friend doing just that; I wish I’d had time to go dig it out of an album.) Today it’s walled off by Perspex with a note explaining that the family pay all the cleaning costs. To think that there are descendants of Wilde’s out there in the world! Still, a tiny letdown when it was such a cute ritual. We also visited Chopin and Balzac and took in the views.
The most touristy things we did this time around were Sainte-Chapelle, a marvel of medieval stained glass, and Shakespeare and Company, the famous English-language haunt of expats over the decades. Notre Dame is still closed for its extensive post-fire restoration (it’s due to reopen next year) but you can read some signboards about the reconstruction outside and sit on the bleachers to soak in the atmosphere. Our other destinations included the Hotel de Ville, lit up at night with a Christmas market to advertise the 2024 Olympics, and the Jardin des Plantes and its museum of paleontology and comparative anatomy – old-fashioned in just the way we like it, with row upon row of skeletons and lots of hand-inked original labels.
We were mostly in the city to eat, and eat we did. Many of our recommendations for boulangeries and patisseries came from American chef David Lebovitz’s blog. Although we did buy traditional baguettes and croissants, we were mostly on the lookout for unusual treats, such as hay-flavoured custard-filled choux buns and a famous maple syrup tart. We had one bistro meal and another at a creperie, this one incorporating Breton-Japanese fusion dishes such as my Breizh rolls, cut from a buckwheat galette filled with artichoke hearts, seaweed, scrambled egg and Comté cheese: a cross between a crêpe and sushi.
We enjoyed riding the Métro and by the time we left felt like pros at it. Speaking French to shopkeepers and waitstaff had also started to become second nature (I even managed to query errors in our order/bill twice at restaurants). The weather was showery and colder than expected, but never enough to spoil our experience, and we stole some good glimpses of the Tower from around the city.
But the highlight of the trip was something we stumbled upon and joined in on a whim. At Shakespeare and Company on our first full day, we spotted a sign for a free event they were hosting the next night: the recording of a podcast by comedian Greg Proops, followed by mince pies, mulled wine and carol singing.
We had never heard of Proops but thought we’d take a chance, so made our way back the next evening and got two of the last seats left in the back of the upstairs space. His monologue was funnier than expected, mostly a stringing together of in-jokes about national stereotypes of the English, Americans and French – but as we all know, clichés are amusing precisely because they contain grains of truth. He also had a few long anecdotes about getting eye surgery and running into a famous old film director in Paris. It sounds like this bookshop event is an annual tradition for him.
Best of all, afterwards the shop was technically closed but we were allowed to stay in – lock-in at the bookshop! They don’t normally allow photographs inside, but my husband managed to sneak a few plus some video of the carol singing. The mince pies, gingerbread and mulled wine were all tasty. Professor Lex Paulson at the piano led us in a marathon of 22 songs ranging from ancient traditionals (“O Come O Come Emmanuel” and “The Coventry Carol”) to recent pop (“Last Christmas” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You”); it must be said that there was more general enthusiasm for the latter, while my husband and I were among the few raring for “The Holly and the Ivy” and suchlike. A truly unforgettable evening.
I’d read one memoir of working and living in Shakespeare and Company, Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs by Jeremy Mercer (original title: Time Was Soft There), back in 2017. I don’t remember it being particularly special as bookish memoirs go, but if you want an insider’s look at the bookshop that’s one option. Founder Sylvia Beach herself also wrote a memoir. The best part of any trip is preparing what books to take and read. I had had hardly any time to plan what else to pack, and ended up unprepared for the cold, but I had my shelf of potential reads ready weeks in advance. I took The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and read the first 88 pages before giving up. This story of several residents of the same apartment building, their families and sadness and thoughts, was reminiscent of Sophie’s World and didn’t grip me. But here’s what I did read, in chronological order (all: 
):
Broderies by Marjane Satrapi (2003)
The fifth-floor Airbnb apartment where we stayed in the suburb of Mairie des Lilas overlooked a school and housed an amazing collection of graphic novels in French. I picked this one up to flick through because I remember enjoying Persepolis, but to my surprise I could understand just about every line bar a very few vocabulary words that I skipped over or grasped in context, so I read the whole thing over a couple of breakfasts and evening glasses of wine.
After a dinner party, Marji helps her grandmother serve tea from a samovar to their female family friends, and the eight Iranian women swap stories about their love lives. These are sometimes funny, but mostly sad and slightly shocking tales about arranged marriages, betrayals, and going to great lengths to entrap or keep a man. They range from a woman who has birthed four children but never seen a penis to a mistress who tried to use mild witchcraft to get a marriage proposal. What is most striking is how standards of beauty and purity have endured in this culture, leading women to despair over their loss of youth and virginity.
I think the title may have some slang meaning relating to the hymen? But in English translation it is Embroideries, referring to the way these women stitch together their life stories and their relationships. All the scenes are in black and white with a readable cursive handwriting for the plentiful text. It was a more talky graphic novel than I tend to prefer, but I learned a lot of good phrases from it, and found it a real joy to read. It must be the first book I have read in French since my university days!
The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz (2009)
We both read this, keeping two bookmarks in and trading it off on Metro journeys. The short thematic chapters, interspersed with recipes, were perfect for short bursts of reading, and the places and meals he described often presaged what we experienced. His observations on the French, too, rang true for us. Why no shower curtains? Why so much barging and cutting in line? Parisians are notoriously rude and selfish, and France’s bureaucracy is something I’ve read about in multiple places this year, including John Lewis-Stempel’s La Vie.
Lebovitz has happily called the city home for two decades now, and performs culinary feats (testing the recipes for his dessert cookbooks) in a tiny apartment kitchen. There are sections here on fish, cheese, chocolate, and so on, but also on particular shopping areas and typically French incidents, such as everyone being on strike at the same time. One chapter was a hymn to G. Detou (a play on words meaning “I have it all”), a food emporium my husband was especially excited to visit. This was breezy and affectionate, a perfect travel companion.
A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm (2022)
This was consciously based on George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, but more so than an exposé of working-class poverty and abuses of power in the restaurant world, it is a rollicking narrative of living hand to mouth and trying to gain acceptance as a waiter. I enjoyed it in much the same way that I did Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler: this is a high-stress, macho world I would never want to be a part of myself, but reading about it is intriguing. After Chisholm broke up with his girlfriend, he lived in a bedbug-ridden garret and often did 14-hour shifts as a runner at the “Bistrot de la Seine,” which packed in hundreds of tables and served thousands of meals daily. As “l’Anglais,” with no proper contract or social security, Chisholm was overlooked but determined to become a waiter. Though he felt fraternity with his colleagues, day-to-day life was brutal. He survived on coffee, cigarettes, and stolen rolls, and caught few-hour naps in the toilets of upscale restaurants. The waiters were cut-throat in their competition for tips, and the chefs, mostly Tamil, worked in a basement inferno. His pen portraits of these characters are particularly Orwellian. The account is as vivid and engrossing as a novel.
I forgot to start it while I was there, but did soon afterwards: The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl, forthcoming in early 2024. When Stella’s elegant, aloof mother Celia dies, she leaves her $8,000 – and instructions to go to Paris and not return to New York until she’s spent it all. At 2nd & Charles yesterday, I also picked up a clearance copy of A Paris All Your Own, an autobiographical essay collection edited by Eleanor Brown, to reread. I like to keep the spirit of a vacation alive a little longer, and books are one of the best ways to do that.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Sounds like a wonderful trip! I miss France and must return soon.
I remember dragging my very young children at the time to pay their respects to Jim Morrison in that cemetery!
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I went to find his grave back in 2004.
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This sounds quite the perfect Parisian adventure. And I have read not one of the books you got through there. Ah well. No many people manage to keep up to your pace!
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Perhaps one more day, and at a less busy time in our lives, and it would have been perfect. But it was still a treat.
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Paris is always fascinating. My favourite places to visit are the Palace of Versailles (in particular, Marie-Antionette’s hamlet) and La Chapelle for its stunning beauty and craftsmanship. I am currently reading Christmas in Paris by Anita Hughes (2016).
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I’ve never made it to Versailles. It sounds a bit overwhelming!
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I love this!! It all sounds so wonderful. Sainte-Chappelle was the model for my uni college chapel, so I feel a special love for it, and Shakespeare & Co. is always brilliant. (Another English-language option that fewer people know about is the Abbey Bookshop on Rue de la Parchminerie, in the Latin Quarter; worth a visit, though automatically less atmospheric. But still has teetering piles, etc.) The Chisholm and Lebovitz books sound particularly wonderful. I was in Paris recently for a flying business visit and was surprised to find waitstaff, taxi drivers, etc. almost uniformly pleasant and helpful—maybe I was cushioned by staying in a relatively plush area, though. Hope you got to see Place Vendôme all lit up at night—so pretty!
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We did drop by the Abbey Bookshop, but the prices were eyewatering. Twelve euros for not rare, not great condition secondhand fiction?! (We enjoyed their free hot vanilla tea, though.)
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Good Lord! Outrageous. But vanilla tea sounds lovely.
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What a lovely celebratory break, particularly the Shakespeare and Co event. I’ve not seen Oscar Wilde’s grave which is quite stunning. I do remember following the handwritten signs to Jim Morrison’s grave and finding it surrounded by tearful young people, several decades after his death.
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Wilde’s grave has such an unusual design. It was nice to see it again after rereading De Profundis.
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Sounds like a great trip! Proops was a familiar face on British TV back in the day, and I think he’s very funny so I’m jealous!!
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Yes, we saw that he was a fixture in the 90s. We enjoyed his shtick. The podcast is here if you’re interested! https://the-smartest-man-in-the-world.simplecast.com/episodes
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Thank you!
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This post made me want to hop on a plane to Paris. Can’t do that but I did add most of these books to my TBR. lol
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Armchair traveling is totally valid!
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Hooray for travel – and delicious food!
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We’re lucky to have such famous locales so close by.
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Happy to hear you had a lovely weekend in Paris.
The Sainte Chapelle is truly stunning, isn’t it? I hope there was at least a bit of sun when you visited, it enhances everything. I think it’s more beautiful than Notre Dame.
I don’t remember seeing any Perspex on Wilde’s grave last time I went to the Père Lachaise. I love the irony of his family needing to pay for the cleaning of his grave.
If you come back, I’d recommend two museums : La Maison de Balzac, a great place for book lovers and the Musée Jacquemart-André, currently closed for renovation.
I usually don’t read books about Paris written by Anglo-saxon expats as they tend to rave about food, swoon upon the yummy bread, complain about waiters, grumble about bureaucracy, share their astonishment at the usual clichés (strikes, dog poop, rudeness, blah blah blah) Let’s not talk about the clichés about Provence.
However, this one about a waiter’s experience sounds very interesting. It’s a tough industry and I’m sure there are many breaches in work regulations. I suppose that he worked as a waiter after Brexit? Otherwise you know all EU citizen are covered by the French social security system with the EU social security card.
Anyway, thanks for the great post and for sharing your time in Paris with us.
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Thank you for the museum recommendations for next time! I can see how you’d get frustrated with the same old cliches, even if they do hold a grain of truth. Chisholm started working as a waiter in 2009, I think it was. He was in a catch-22 because he didn’t have a permanent address so couldn’t get his paperwork.
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I understand his administrative issues, then.
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Look fantastic Rebecca. I am going next September with my sister for my first visit and Shakespeare & Co is top of my to see list!
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I hope you have a wonderful time! How long will you have there? There was a queue out the door and a one-in-one-out system at Shakespeare and Company — probably a holdover from Covid days. The no-photo policy is probably to stop the shop from being overrun with people who are just gawping and not actually interested in the books.
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I think we are only going for two nights, but we both want to go there. We might try for early in the morning then – it is quite small isn’t it?
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It’s quite a cramped shop when busy with tourists, yes. I’m not sure what time of day is best. We encountered queues in both the afternoon and evening.
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How fun! Especially the food in Paris, of course, and Greg Proops. I remember him from the American improv comedy show, “Who’s Line is it, Anyway?” Sounded like a great evening. I was sad that rain canceled our little town’s caroling–hauled singing behind a tractor–two years in a row now. Glad you got your carols on!
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Ah, glad someone remembers Proops. We read that he was involved in that show but I don’t think I ever saw it.
That’s too bad about your caroling. My nine-year-old nephew will be caroling in the halls of his school today. He plays the trumpet on “Jingle Bells” and “Good King Wenceslas.” We were treated (cough) to his rehearsals the last few nights!
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Ha, trumpet–brave family there!
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Following in his brother’s footsteps … it wasn’t the most pleasant evening listening!
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What a lovely trip! I took myself there for my 25th birthday and haven’t been back since – now I have to avoid France so I don’t wreck my Spanish language learning, but I did love it there. I stayed in a friend’s teeeeeny apartment, discovered L’Occitane soap and thought I was very clever and special until I found it stocked all over the UK and went to a poetry night where the more I drank, the more French I could understand and speak! Anyway, thank you for taking us with you on your trip!
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That sounds like a fun trip!
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[…] ceremony; interviewing Lydia Davis and Anne Enright over e-mail; singing carols after-hours at Shakespeare and Company in […]
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Ahh, I love to read about an experience at Shakespeare and Co! I have only visited Paris once, on a high school trip. Shortly before that trip, I had read the Jeremy Mercer memoir you note here. It then became my goal to visit the bookstore when we had a wee bit of free time (my science teacher chaperone was greatly amused by that). How delightful to be able to attend an event there, and especially a cozy Christmas one.
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I feel so lucky to have stumbled on the event. Did you ever make it to Shakespeare and Company?
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Yes, I managed to squeeze in a quick visit way back during that trip! 🙂 Hopefully I can make it back again someday.
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What a fabulous trip and a belated birthday to C!
I love all the details and photos you’ve included for us!
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December was such a whirlwind that Paris seems ages ago. I’m going to make a photo book of all the special events for our 40th year.
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[…] five+ I loved reading Three Days in Paris and What I Read. […]
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[…] Brahms by Françoise Sagan. My proudest achievements are: reading the short graphic novel Broderies by Marjane Satrapi in the original French at our Parisian Airbnb in December; and managing two […]
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