100 books like L'Appart

At age 15, I was captivated by Ernest Hemingway and his depiction of Paris in the 1920s. This book today reignites the enchantment of those years. Hemingway's profound influence shaped my aspirations as a writer. Through his eyes, I can vividly see Paris's cafés, salons, and vibrant social scenes, which ultimately became the backdrop of my dreams.

This book, rich with lovemaking, drinking, writing, betting at the track, and the bohemian lifestyle of so many young artists in Paris, reawakens my desire to immerse myself in that world. Hemingway's narrative voice and his novels continue to speak to me in a language that feels intimately mine, reminding me of the undying impact of his work on my life and aspirations.

Not a repeat reader by nature, this book I have read three times, and keep a digital copy handy because I find myself consulting it when I’m in Paris. As a historian of 19th-century art, I knew modern Paris was the co-creation of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann; its many boulevards, department stores, parks, train stations, and now ubiquitous 7-story, white buildings with wrought-iron window grates emerged during the second half of the 19th-century. Professor DeJean persuaded me otherwise: that Henry IV made the first modern improvements: planned neighborhoods, tax incentives to encourage enterprise, streetlights, and Europe’s first stone bridge intended for spectating rather than commerce – the Pont Neuf had no buildings, just alcoves with stone benches for viewing the city from the Seine River that traverses it.

In grad school, Adam and I had the same advisor, McArthur ‘Genius’ Kirk Varnedoe, and as a lifelong New Yorker reader, I’ve avidly followed his career. Paris to the Moon is an engaging memoir of his family and professional life as an ex-pat New Yorker writer in Paris during the 1990s. I love his insider-outsider perspective and the fact that he lived in my favorite neighborhood, rive Gauche at the boundary between the 6th and 7th arrondissements. With a sociologist-anthropologist’s eye, Adam interrogates the quintessentially Parisian (why Café Flore has surpassed Deux Magots in fashionability, for instance), attends lectures by celebrity sociologist Jean Beaudrillard, muses about the public reception of labor strikes, negotiates toddler culture in Paris, and take us food exploring with the iconic Alice Waters.

I always recommend this short read to anyone wanting to understand the weird, dystopic side of the late 19th-century Symbolist movement. Written in 1884 at the beginning of the avant-garde art movement that launched 20th-century modernism and abstraction, Huysmans tells the tale of an aristocrat repulsed by a Paris transformed by urbanization, commercialization, and massive immigration who builds himself a ‘Fortress of Solitude’ in a quiet suburb and interacts with the world through his imagination with the help of a loyal servant who maintained his physical milieu, silently serving meals and performing domestic tasks. Who doesn’t want to know more about a man determined to beautify his environment by commissioning a jeweler to embed precious stones into the shell of his pet tortoise?

Buford recounts his story of what originally was supposed to be a year in France, learning to cook, French style, through an apprenticeship in Lyon. While the whole story is engaging, maybe the most interesting part for me was the tale that runs throughout about Bob, the boulanger, and his quest to make bread from the flour with a specific terroir, because the soils and climate were essential to the quality of his baguettes. 

Commencing with that momentous lunch of Sole Meunière (“it was the most exciting meal of my life”), which launched Julia Child on her quest to unravel the secrets of French cuisine, this is a delightful memoir of the post-war years of the future celebrity chef spent in Paris and Marseille with her charming husband Paul. I can hear Child’s hearty laugh and exuberant voice throughout as she regales us lucky readers with stories of learning how to properly scramble an egg at Le Cordon Bleu, of visits to the local crémerie for fresh-churned butter and Camembert cheese, and late-night dinner parties at their Parisian digs. Few books have made me smile (and feel hungry) as much as this one did. 

This delectable cookbook is my sneaky way of recommending the entire Bruno, Chief of Police, mystery series by Martin Walker, set in southern France.

Bruno fits his detecting in between leisurely meals, good wine, and visits with his neighbors. Thanks to this cookbook by Martin Walker and his wife, Julia Watson, I can picture him and his village even better now and taste his delicious meals.

The recipes come from their home kitchen. Photos show the glorious Dordogne region. Anecdotes and stories tell of Bruno, cooking, village life, and the authors’ time in southern France. I want this book for my coffee table, kitchen, and soothing bedtime reading. 

The Time-Life Foods of the World series first published in the 1960s is hands down, to this day, the best books on the various cuisines of the world. Every book in the series is top-notch but the one on provincial French cooking was edited by the famous food writer M. F. K. Fisher. The book, as all in the series, is not written from a chef's point of view, but for the home cook. The recipes are classics and easily do-able by an even slightly competent home cook. They were originally sold as a box set consisting of a large book of text with several recipes and alluring photographs and a smaller spiral-bound book of recipes.

Willan is an Englishwoman who lived most of her life in France where she founded and ran the École de Cuisine La Varenne, in Paris and Burgundy. All her books are great, but this book is superlative, and I would put it in the same ranks as the Time-Life book. Its depth of knowledge and breadth is wonderful and there is much to explore and learn. The recipes are gems and work every time.

David was one of the most famous food writers in post-World War II Europe and she introduced English readers to the cuisine that exists beyond the celebrated kitchens of the top chefs of Paris. Although the recipes are written in a more abbreviated style than one sees today, her personable stories enliven the dishes she includes so you the reader will excitedly jump right to the kitchen and get cooking.