Our very strict lockdown and curfew at 7 pm has an advantage: everyone wants to meet for lunch and discussions are intense over the most minute novelty. This week, the social event is Jacqueline de Ribes’s biography by Dominique Bona, an eminent member of the French Academy, who has already published many successful women’s bios. The problem with this one … Read More
Amos Gitaï and Yitzhak Rabin, a 25 year long story
It was incredibly poignant to meet film director Amos Gitaï at Bibliothèque Nationale de France this week. A small group of journalists were invited to visit the new exhibition of his archives on Yitzhak Rabin‘s assassination on November 4, 1995. Films, interviews, a play and a book, and numeric archives, the result of 25 years of research, are being bequeathed by … Read More
The last happy event before being lockdowned again
“The only good news this Thursday” mentioned the invitation to Pierre Alain Challier’s gallery at the very time that Jean Claude Fasquelle, a giant of publishing with Grasset, was being buried at Saint Germain des Prés and just before Manuel Canovas, the fabric designer’s funeral. And it was to be a literary event with lots of booze… around Nicolas d’Estienne … Read More
New habits, new pleasures and lots to read.
Everything has changed in our lives in the last year and one positive detail is that we have more time to read. This week I enjoyed reading at last, Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian’s biography of Tiger Woods and I was surprised at how excellent it is, even for non golfers. The golf champion was in an accident two weeks … Read More
Museums keep hanging their shows and some, in Spain and Italy, are even open…
In Paris, Musée Marmottan has just finished hanging the ravishing Krøyer exhibition, Petit Palais, which was bequeathed by Academician Jean Marie Rouart, twelve works by Henri and Auguste Rouart, Henry Lerolle and Maurice Denis is preparing its prints show “Edition Limitée, Vollard, Pétiet et l’Estampe de Maître” and in London the V&A is hosting the largest Iranian show in a … Read More
Jean Dunand is everywhere this week!
Editions Norma is a remarkable publishing house which always publishes refined books with the greatest care. Founded and run by Maïté Hudry, it specializes in 1920 to 1970’s architecture and design, but has recently published the catalog of an exhibition of sneakers “Playground” which took place in Bordeaux. And their latest publication is about “Jean Dunand”, by Amélie and father … Read More
Belle Greene, Alexandra Lapierre’s new character is a true marvel
Everything close to the heart of Alexandra Lapierre seems to be in this new novel: America, books, exceptional women and love. And zooming through the 500 page biographical novel which she devotes to Belle Greene, the founder of the Morgan Library, is a shared adventure. Born in a metis family, the daughter of Richard Theodore Greener and Geneviève Fleet, Belle … Read More
“La Familia Grande”, a social study
At the time of the Georgia vote, a very Parisian scandal is agitating Saint Germain des Prés’s society. The publication of “La Familia Grande” a book by Camille Kouchner describing the dysfunctional habits of one of the most prominent families of intellectual Paris. In Washington, the mob invades The Capitol, in Paris the daughter of former Foreign minister Bernard Kouchner … Read More