Jacqueline in Paris - A Novel . By Ann Mah.-2022 - 322 Pages-A Paris in July 2924 Work

 Jacqueline in Paris - A Novel . By Ann Mah.-2022 - 322 Pages-A Paris in July 2924 Work

Paris in July 2024

Paris in July does not just include books. Contributions on your Paris vacation, your favourite meal or restaurant, French movies, music, art, Parisian history and more are very welcome. On the home page for the event you will inevitably discover perhaps new to you books, movies and recipes to send you if you are lucky to Paris or at least the kitchen.

During Paris in July 2022 I read a marvelous book, Mastering the Art  of French Eating:Lessons in Food and Love from a Year  in Paris by Ann Mah. 2015 - 273 Pages 

I am very glad to have  an opportunity to post on another set in 

in Paris novel  by Ann Mah during this year's Paris in July.

Jacqueline in Paris is a first person narrative of the experiences of Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of President John Kennedy, of her year spent in Paris as part of a year abroad program at Vassar College in 1949 up to her return on an official visit as the wife of the president in June of 1961.  She tells the story from her memories after his assassination.

The work with her life with her divorced from her father mother who has very strict expectations for her.  Her mother remarried for money.  The only proper life for a girl according to her mother was a wife to a wealthy young man from the right sort of family.  She told Jacqueline to hide her intelligence as it would turn away potential suitors.  She also remains close to her alcoholic father with a reputation as a philander.

"September 1949 Jacqueline Bouvier arrives in postwar Paris to begin her junior year abroad. She’s twenty years old, socially poised but financially precarious, and all too aware of her mother’s expectations that she make a brilliant match. Before relenting to family pressure, she has one year to herself far away from sleepy Vassar College and the rigid social circles of New York, a year to explore and absorb the luminous beauty of the City of Light. Jacqueline is immediately catapulted into an intoxicating new world of champagne and châteaux, art and avant-garde theater, cafés and jazz clubs. She strikes up a romance with a talented young writer who shares her love of literature and passion for culture – even though her mother would think him most unsuitable.

But beneath the glitter and rusho France is a fragile place still haunted by the Occupation. Jacqueline lives in a rambling apartment with a widowed countess and her daughters, all of whom suffered as part of the French Resistance just a few years before. In the aftermath of World War II, Paris has become a nest of spies, and suspicion, deception, and betrayal lurk around every corner. Jacqueline is stunned to watch the rise of communism – anathema in America, but an active movement in France – never guessing she is witnessing the beginning of the political environment that will shape the rest of her life—and that of her future husband.

Evocative, sensitive, and rich in historic detail, Jacqueline in Paris portrays the origin story of an American icon. Ann Mah brilliantly imagines the intellectual and aesthetic awakening of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and illuminates how France would prove to shape her life" from the Publisher 

Ann Mah is an American food and travel writer. She is the author of the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller The Lost Vintage, as well as three other books. She contributes regularly to the New York Times Travel section, and her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Condé Nast Traveler, The Best American Travel Writing, The New York Times Footsteps, Washingtonian magazine, Vogue.com, BonAppetit.com, Food52.com, TheKitchn.com, and other publications.

I hope to read this month another of her set in France novels, The Lost Vintage.

And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi Occupied Paris by Alan Riding - 2010 - 433 Pages - A Paris in July 2024 Work

 Paris in July 2024

Paris in July does not just include books. Contributions on your Paris vacation, your favourite meal or restaurant, French movies, music, art and more are very welcome.  

Works I have so far featured for Paris in July 2024

1. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

2. A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City by Edward Chisholm -2022- 

3. And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi Occupied Paris by Alan Riding - 2010

And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi Occupied Paris by Alan Riding is a very comprehensive account of how all aspects of the arts and those involved in them were impacted by German domination of Paris during World War II.  Parisians had a wide range of responses.  Some were active supporters of fasicism, others figured Nazi domination was permanent and just thought it prudent to go along while others actively resisted, sacrificing their lives to oppose the Nazis,

"The book shows that there was no black and white when it came to resisting and collaborating. Riding is not unsympathetic to collabos. Instead, he traces how they came to be by painting an elaborate picture of the terror of the German invasion, the collapse of French morale following the first world war, the immense humiliation and fear of a defeated population. There are sections, too, on the rise of fascist writers like Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (who called for a pure-blooded France, free of Jews, liberals and gypsies) and the background of Charles Maurras, founder of the rightwing Action Française, which became especially virulent when the Jewish liberal Léon Blum became prime minister in 1936.

And what of the artists themselves, the ones who simply wanted to get on with their work, and not be bothered with politics? After the war Sartre said that writers and artists had a duty to tell their countrymen "not to be ruled by Germans". But there were still plenty who boarded trains to Munich and Berlin with bright smiles for solidarity tours of Germany. We all say we would never have done it. No one wanted to be a Maurice Chevalier or Sacha Guitry singing their hearts out or writing plays for Germans, but Riding points out that even these scorned men were not exactly collabos. They also helped Jewish friends while hanging out with the high-ranking Germans in charge of the cultural world. After all, Riding writes, the Germans had champagne and food and wonderful parties while many Parisians were living on onions and freezing from lack of coal.

Some artists, such as Édith Piaf, also went to Germany or consorted with Germans as a means to an end – to get French prisoners of wars freed in exchange for their presence on German soil. Others did so out of fear, or plain survival: most were sure that there would be a German victory and they wanted to ensure that they would be able to carry on their life's work.

And the Show Went On is a much larger history than its title suggests. It is about cultural life in Paris, but it is also a book about society and politics in the years leading up to the war. Riding takes on an immense topic and succeeds in demonstrating that even through war and sorrow and misery, art was created, books were written and, in the worse moments of destruction, there was also creation." From The Guardian 

I cannot imagine there being a better book on the topic than that of Alan Riding.

For 12 years, Alan Riding was the European cultural correspondent for the New York Times. He was previously bureau chief for the Times in Paris, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. Riding is the author of And the Show Went On and Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans. He lives in Paris with his wife, Marlise Simons, a writer for the Times.

A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City by Edward Chisholm -2022- 382 Pages - A Paris in July 2024

• Paris in July 2024 

 Works I have so far featured for Paris in July 2024

1. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

2. A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City by Edward Chisholm -2022- 

A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City by Edward Chisholm is kind of a contemporary remake of Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933,  by George Orwell.  One of my never to be realised dreams was to take my wife to a five starred restaurant in Paris.  Sometimes you are better off  not knowing too much of what hidden from the public, as Edward Chisholm from London does in his account of working in Parisian restaurants.

"An evocative portrait of the underbelly of contemporary Paris as seen through the eyes of a young waiter scraping out a living in the City of Light.

A waiter's job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door . . . is hell.

Edward Chisholm's spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you beneath the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world—and right into its glorious underbelly.

He inhabits a world of inhuman hours, snatched sleep and dive bars; scraping by on coffee, bread and cigarettes, often under sadistic managers, with a wage so low you're fighting your colleagues for tips. Your colleagues—including thieves, narcissists, ex-soldiers, immigrants, wannabe actors, and drug dealers—are the closest thing to family that you've got.

It's physically demanding, frequently humiliating and incredibly competitive. But it doesn't matter because you're in Paris, the center of the universe, and there's nowhere else you'd rather be in the world." -from The Publisher Simon and Schuster 

Edward Chisholm was born in England and moved to Paris after graduating from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. A resident in the City of Lights for seven years, Chisholm spent the first four of them working all manner of low-paid restaurant jobs, from waiting and bartending, while trying to build a career as a writer. Now Chisholm makes a living as a freelance writer. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Financial Times magazine. He lives in England.

Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelick- 2014- 732 Pages - A Paris in July Work

Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelick- 2014- 732 Pages - A Paris in July Work

Paris in July 2024

 Paris in July does not just include books. Contributions on your Paris vacation, your favourite meal or restaurant, French movies, music, art and more are very welcome.

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel

Born August 19, 1893 Saumur, France

Died January 10, 1971 Paris 

On July First our youngest daughter graduated from medical school,. After the ceremony the family had an observational luncheon at an elegant Manila restaurant.  The graduate was wearing  a little black dress and a string of pearls.  I know Mademoiselle Chanel would have approved.

Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelick- 2014- 732 Pages - is a brilliant account of the life of Chanel and the era in which she lived and reigned.

Coco Chanel transformed forever the way women dressed. Her influence remains so pervasive that to this day we can see her afterimage a dozen times while just walking down a single street: in all the little black dresses, flat shoes, costume jewelry, cardigan sweaters, and tortoiseshell eyeglasses on women of every age and background. A bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume is sold every three seconds. Arguably, no other individual has had a deeper impact on the visual aesthetic of the world. But how did a poor orphan become a global icon of both luxury and everyday style while achieving incredible wealth? How did she develop such vast, undying influence? And what does our ongoing love of all things Chanel tell us about ourselves? These are the mysteries that Rhonda Garelick unravels.

Chanel was born into poverty in rural France, abandoned to an orphanage with her sisters by her father, at 19 she attracted the attention of a wealthy man who sponsored her as a milliner. She gave her hats to high fashion wealthy Parisian ladies, soon her sponsor set her up in a shop. 

At age 23 Chanel met a young French ex-cavalry officer and textile heir, Étienne Balsan. At the age of twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan's mistress, supplanting the courtesan Émilienne d'Alençon as his new favourite. For the next three years, she lived with him in his château Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life.It was a lifestyle of self-indulgence. Balsan's wealth allowed the cultivation of a social set that reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites, with all the implied accompanying decadence. Balsan showered Chanel with the baubles of "the rich life"—diamonds, dresses, and pearls. Balsan needed a heir and his family would never have accepted Chanel as a wife.  He married an appropriate woman and continued his relationship with Chanel.  This began a pattern of relationships with extremely wealthy men.

Chanel had begun designing hats while living with Balsan, initially as a diversion that evolved into a commercial enterprise. She became a licensed milliner in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris, named Chanel Modes.[29] As this location already housed an established clothing business, Chanel sold only her millinery creations at this address. Chanel's millinery career bloomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorziat wore her hats in Fernand Nozière's play Bel Ami in 1912. Subsequently, Dorziat modelled Chanel's hats again in photographs published in Les Modes.

In Biarritz Chanel met an expatriate aristocrat, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. They had a romantic interlude, and maintained a close association for many years afterward. By 1919, Chanel was registered as a couturière and established her maison de couture at 31 rue Cambon, Paris.

In 1918, Chanel purchased the building at 31 rue Cambon, in one of the most fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she opened an early incarnation of a fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and accessories, later expanded to offer jewellery and fragrances. By 1927, Chanel owned five properties on the rue Cambon, 

In the spring of 1920, Chanel was introduced to the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky by Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes. During the summer, Chanel discovered that the Stravinsky family sought a place to live, having left the Russian Soviet Republic after the war. She invited them to her new home, Bel Respiro, in the Paris suburb of Garches, until they could find a suitable residence.They arrived at Bel Respiro during the second week of September 1919  and remained until May 1921.She developed a romantic relationship with Igor Stravinsky during this time, but the affair was brie Chanel also guaranteed the new (1920) Ballets Russes production of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps ('The Rite of Spring') against financial loss with an anonymous gift to Diaghilev.  In addition to turning out her couture collections, Chanel threw herself into designing dance costumes for the Ballets Russes. In the years 1923–1937, she collaborated on productions choreographed by Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, notably Le Train bleu, a dance-opera; Orphée and Oedipe Roi.

1922, at the Longchamps races, Théophile Bader, founder of the Paris Galeries Lafayette, introduced Chanel to businessman Pierre Wertheimer. Bader was interested in selling Chanel No. 5 in his department store In 1924, Chanel made an agreement with the Wertheimer brothers, Pierre and Paul, directors since 1917 of the eminent perfume and cosmetics house Bourjois. They created a corporate entity, Parfums Chanel, and the Wertheimers agreed to provide full financing for the production, marketing, and distribution of Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers would receive seventy percent of the profits, and Théophile Bader twenty percent. For ten percent of the stock, Chanel licensed her name to Parfums Chanel and withdrew from involvement in business operations. Later, unhappy with the arrangement, Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of Parfums Chanel. She said that Pierre Wertheimer was "the bandit who screwed me".

After devopiing a relationship with the Duke of Westminster, the wealthiest man in England she began to favor right wing political views.

Garelick unravels the controversies surrounding Chanel's relationship during W.W. Two when she lived in the Ritz Hotel surrounded by high ranking Nazis while having a romance with a German major, a Baron.  

There is much more in this marvelous book.

Rhonda Garelick is dean of the School of Art and Design History and Theory, at Parsons School of Design/The New School in New York. She’s the author of three books, and writes on fashion and cultural politics for New York Magazine, The New York Times and many other publications. Garelick received her B.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature and French from Yale.

The Paris Library: A Novel by Janet Skeslien Charles - 2021 - 382 Pages - Paris in July 2024

 The Paris Library: A Novel by Janet Skeslien Charles is for me a perfect start for Paris in July 2024

Paris in July 2024

Paris in July does not just include books. Contributions on your Paris vacation, your favourite meal or restaurant, French movies, music, art and more are very welcome.

"instant New York Times, Washington Post, and USA TODAY bestseller—based on the true story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris during World War II—The Paris Library is a moving and unforgettable “ode to the importance of libraries, books, and the human connections we find within both” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet seems to have the perfect life with her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into the city, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal.

Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbor. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor’s mysterious past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings, and the same intense jealousy, never suspecting that a dark secret from the past connects them." From the Publisher Simon and Schuster 

The Paris Library is a brilliant portrayal of the gradual take over of Paris by the Nazis up to the days after the liberation of Paris. The depiction of Parisians fleeing the city is very vivid and cinematic, it reminded me of the work of Irene Nemirosky.

 I became very involved with the people in the novel.  Everyone had their own way of trying to survive. People lose weight due to rationing, loved ones are killed or taken prisoners.  Bonds are formed and broken. Through it all we see how those working at the American Library in Paris were kept going by books. The Paris Library abounds in marvelous astute literary references.  I loved this from Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys  - “I want a long, calm book about people with large incomes—a book like a flat green meadow and the sheep feeding in it.… "

There are near r rated portions in the novel.  I was brought to mind Elizabeth Bowen remarking that during the Blitz in London she felt her sexual impulses heightened knowing any day could bring a violent death

Janet Skeslien Charles is a New York Times and international bestselling author whose work has been translated into 37 languages. Her shorter work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Montana Noir. Originally from Montana, she lives in Paris, where she is working on the final installment of her library trilogy..

The Reading Live Review - June 2024 -

The Reading Live Review - June 2024 - 

Works Posted Upon in June 

1. Milkweed- A Newberry Award Winning Novel by  Jerry Spinelli- set in Warsaw during the Holocaust 

2.The End of Eden: Wild Nature in the Age of Climate Breakdown by Adam Welz - 2023 - 288 Pages 

3. The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World by Oliver Milman - 2022 - 278 Pages

4. "Salt" - A Short Story by Carol Shields 

5.  "The Journal" - A short story by Carol Shields

6. "Home" - A short story by Carol Shields 

All authors  but Carol Shields were featured for the first time in June, only she is deceased.  

Home Countries of June Authors

1. USA- 2

2. South Africa- 1

3. Canada - 1

Blog Stats 

Since inception our posts have been viewed 7,900,547 times.

In June we had 151,549 Page Views. A record high.

Home Countries of Visitors 

1, Hong Kong 

2. USA

3, Singapore 

4. Polond 

5. Germany

6. China

7. Canada

8. UK

9. Philippines 

10. Bangladesh 

The most viewed posts were those on South and South East Asian Short stories 

Mel Ulm 

The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World by Oliver Milman - 2022 - 278 Pages

 

 The insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World by Oliver Milman - 2022 - 278 Pages is a fascinating incredibly educational account of how climate change is impacting the insects of the earth and importantly why humans should care about them. Milman begins by focusing on how negatively our food supply would be impacted with out the pollination of food plants by insects.

"A devastating examination of how collapsing insect populations worldwide threaten everything from wild birds to the food on our plate.

From ants scurrying under leaf litter to bees able to fly higher than Mount Kilimanjaro, insects are everywhere. Three out of every four of our planet’s known animal species are insects. In The Insect Crisis, acclaimed journalist Oliver Milman dives into the torrent of recent evidence that suggests this kaleidoscopic group of creatures is suffering the greatest existential crisis in its remarkable 400-million-year history. What is causing the collapse of the insect world?  Why does this alarming decline pose such a threat to us? And what can be done to stem the loss of the miniature empires that hold aloft life as we know it?

With urgency and great clarity, Milman explores this hidden emergency, arguing that its consequences could even rival climate change. He joins the scientists tracking the decline of insect populations across the globe, including the soaring mountains of Mexico that host an epic, yet dwindling, migration of monarch butterflies; the verdant countryside of England that has been emptied of insect life; the gargantuan fields of U.S. agriculture that have proved a killing ground for bees; and an offbeat experiment in Denmark that shows there aren’t that many bugs splattering into your car windshield these days. These losses not only further tear at the tapestry of life on our degraded planet; they imperil everything we hold dear, from the food on our supermarket shelves to the medicines in our cabinets to the riot of nature that thrills and enlivens us. Even insects we may dread, including the hated cockroach, or the stinging wasp, play crucial ecological roles, and their decline would profoundly shape our own story." From the Publisher 

Oliver Milman is a British journalist and the environment correspondent at the Guardian. He lives in New York City.