The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris

John Baxter

Harper Collins, May 24, 2011 - Travel - 320 pages

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.

Contents

• TO WALK THE WALK: 1
• WALKING BACKWARDS FOR CHRISTMAS: 7
• WHAT A MANS GOT TO DO: 14
• HEAT: 17
• TWO GEESE AROASTING 6 THE HOLLYWOOD MOMENT 31: 31
• HEMINGWAYS SHOES: 39
• THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST: 44
• THE BOULEVARDIER: 51
• THE MURDERERS GARDEN: 58
• GOING WALKABOUT: 69
• THE MUSIC OF WALKING: 75
• POWER WALKS: 80
• A PROPOSITION AT LES EDITEURS: 88
• THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY: 94
• THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: 102
• THE OPIUM TRAIL: 109
• POSTCARDS FROM PARIS: 116
• THE GROUND BENEATH OUR FEET: 125
• LOOKING FOR MATISSE: 133
• FISH STORY: 141
• THE GREAT LA COUPOLE ROUNDUP: 148
• LIVER LOVER: 157
• PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLED: 165
• A WALK IN THE EARTH: 170
• HEAVEN AND HELL: 182
• BLUE HOUR BLUES: 189
• THE LAST OF MONTPARNASSE: 207
• THE FUZZ ON THE PEACH: 216
• TO MARKET: 223
• THE BOULEVARD OF CRIME: 227
• THE GATES OF NIGHT: 234
• A LITTLE PLACE IN THE NINETEENTH: 240
• A WALK IN TIME: 248
• AUSSIE IN THE MÉTRO: 260
• A TOUCH OF STRANGE: 272
• THE MOST BEAUTIFUL: 274
• WALK IN THE WORLD: 281
• PARIS MODE DEMPLOI PARIS A USERS GUIDE: 287

About the author

John Baxter has lived in Paris for more than twenty years. He is the author of four acclaimed memoirs about his life in France: The Perfect Meal: In Search of the Lost Tastes of France; The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris; Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas; and We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light. Baxter, who gives literary walking tours through Paris, is also a film critic and biographer whose subjects have included the directors Fellini, Kubrick, Woody Allen, and most recently, Josef von Sternberg. Born in Australia, he lives with his wife and daughter in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood, in the same building Sylvia Beach called home.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris
• Author: John Baxter
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2011
• ISBN: 0062092057, 9780062092052
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Travel / Essays & Travelogues; Travel / Europe / France; Travel / Special Interest / Hikes & Walks