Every year for the past six Prize givings, the emotion is intense in memory of Pierre Antoine Bernheim, a brilliant mind who had decided to leave the financial world where his father Antoine excelled, and join the small circle of intellectuals thinking about the weight of religion in our lives. He published seven books including a History of Paradises, in … Read More
Proust’s Duchess in modern words!
Proust’s news have never been so intense as in the last two years and new writings are being discovered constantly on this prolific novelist. Caroline Weber, who teaches at Columbia University, has delivered an amazingly easy to read, yet erudite, research on the three ladies who inspired the Duchesse de Guermantes. Her book, “Proust’s Duchess” reads like a thriller and … Read More
Joël Dicker flies very high in sales
It was a lovely literary evening at the Swiss embassy in Paris where Ambassador Bernardino Regazzoni and his delightful wife were hosting Swiss writer Joël Dicker to celebrate his fourth best seller “La disparition de Stéphanie Mailer” which sold 48 000 copies in its first six days. The dashing writer who was discovered by publisher Bernard de Fallois, gave a … Read More
The Qajar dynasty in Iran, more than just warriors
The new exhibition at Louvre Lens, “The Rose Empire” is devoted to the Qajar dynasty, who reigned over Persia from 1786 to 1925, when Reza Khan Pahlavi took over. Four hundred pieces came from 35 French institutions and private collections and twelve countries to describe the world of this family, whose descendants now mostly live in Europe and the United … Read More
Lafayette Anticipations, a new meeting place in the Marais
The staircase and elevator are particularly well conceived
The concept store Colette closed last December, a new artists’s store is born in the Marais : « A Rebours » inspired by Joris Karl Huysmans’ famous novel (Against the grain), a novelty store which is the tip of the icebeerg of the new Lafayette Anticipations Foundation. You will not find an art collection there but a building enlarged and renovated by … Read More
Alicia Drake, the master painter of Parisian life
You know Alicia Drake‘s name from her masterful book “The Beautiful Fall“, published in 2006, about the lives of Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. It stirred so much interest from both sides of the Atlantic that she barely had time to deliver her fifth child in the middle of the turmoil of the French translation (Ed Stock). Alicia is … Read More
Bernard de Fallois has left us and he will be missed
The day after he died, his office was well organised with a new manuscript still unpacked, lying on his desk. Five « orphans », Christophe, Marie-Claire, Philippine, Tristan and Anne, his faithful collaborators, were meeting to discuss the future of the house which he had founded 30 years ago when he left Editions Julliard. Bernard de Fallois was one of the last … Read More
Marilyn Yalom, champion of the heart
When I met Marilyn Yalom, twenty years ago, she was just publishing “A History of the Breast”, which started in the Middle Ages and ended with Madonna. A historian, very francophile and a contributor to the center for women’s studies at Stanford University, Marilyn has steadily published eight major books on women and death. She is married to the great … Read More