Debussy's Legacy and the Construction of Reputation
Book
Today, Claude Debussy's position as a central figure in twentieth-century concert music is secure,...
No Need for Geniuses: Revolutionary Science in the Age of the Guillotine
Book
Paris at the time of the French Revolution was the world capital of science. Its scholars laid the...
The Real Tales of Hoffmann: Origin, History, and Restoration of an Operatic Masterpiece
Placido Domingo, Michael Kaye and Vincent Giroud
Book
Of all operas in the standard repertory, none has had a more complicated genesis and textual history...
Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present
Book
This book narrates the history of the different peoples who have lived in the three major regions of...
Living in Morocco: Design from Casablanca to Marrakesh
Book
Morocco is an exhilarating combination of vivid sensuality and intense spirituality, an intoxicating...
Niki de Saint Phalle
Camille Morineau, Bloum Cardenas, Catherine Francblin and Niki de Saint Phalle
Book
This gorgeous volume offers the most complete overview in print of the oeuvre of Niki de Saint...
It is Right to Rebel
Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Victor and Philippe Gavi
Book
The early 1970s were a crucial period in the political and intellectual climate of France. The...
Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters
Jean-Nicholas-Arthur Rimbaud, Wallace Fowlie and Seth Whidden
Book
The enfant terrible of French letters, Jean-Nicholas-Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91) was a defiant and...
18th century Paris was a place of great uncertainty - and this book has echoes of Dickensian London. It’s so much more than that though. Not only do we get some wonderful descriptions of the sights, sounds and smells of Paris at the time, we also get to look at Edward Carey’s beautiful pictures. I say beautiful, they’re pictures that portray people in their sometimes beautiful ugliness (that’s a thing, right?).
The life that Little lives! I hadn’t known any of the background of Madame Tussaud, and to be honest, with the way her formative years went, I’m astonished that she survived to old age. The Paris of the French Revolution was a dangerous place, and Little had come to know some dangerous people.
I don’t want to say anything else. It would be a shame for me to reveal any of the (what were to me) big surprises. This is a startling, moving, frustrating, emotional, bizarre, glorious journey through the French years of Madame Tussaud’s life. It was recommended to me by book blogger @yearsofreading, and I’m so glad I listened to her. Now I recommend that if you haven’t read this book, and you’ve read my review this far, go out and read it. You won’t regret it!