Description

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

A Waterstones Best History Book of 2024 Pick

‘Kuper is a shrewd observer [in] this entertaining mix of memoir and anthropology’ The Sunday Times

From the bestselling author of Chums comes an explorer’s tale of a naif getting to understand a complex, glittering, beautiful and often cruel city.

Simon Kuper has experienced Paris both as a human being and as a journalist. He has grown middle-aged there, eaten the croissants, taken his children to countless football matches on freezing Saturday mornings in the city’s notorious banlieues, and in 2015 lived through two terrorist attacks on his family’s neighbourhood. Over two decades of becoming something of a cantankerous Parisian himself, Kuper has watched the city change.

This century, Paris has globalised, gentrified, and been shocked into realising its role as the crucible of civilisational conflict. Sometimes it’s a multicultural paradise, and sometimes it isn’t. This decade, Parisians have lived through a sequence of shocks: terrorist attacks, record floods and heatwaves, the burning of Notre Dame, the storming of the city by gilets jaunes, and the pandemic. Now, as the Olympics come to town, France is busy executing the ‘Grand Paris’ project: the most serious attempt yet to knit together the bejewelled city with its neglected suburbs.

This is a captivating memoir of today’s Paris without the cliches.

Publisher Review

Highly readable and amusing … Kuper is a charming guide * New Statesman * Next time you travel to the former City of Light, take this book * Independent * An absorbing, affectionate, acutely observed, cliche-free study of contemporary Paris * Irish Times * A persuasive defence of the very idea of a city… a reminder of the countless ways in which urban life remains one of the few efficient vaccines against bigotry and toxic nationalism * Washington Post * A portrait of Parisian society … the style is elegant and flinty, the humour dry — Andrew Martin * Literary Review * One of the best books about Paris… deftly debunks the alarmist narratives [to] reveal a city of tolerance and nuance * Foreign Affairs * Kuper has the journalist’s touch of rendering cliches less cliched and giving the personal a hint of universalism * Times Literary Supplement * [A] revealing memoir … Kuper is a clear-eyed observer of all the history that is happening all around him * Observer * Informative and enlightening with a sarcastic touch… puts us on the streets themselves and lets us mingle * Los Angeles Review of Books * With a dry wit and a journalist’s eye, Kuper unravels the layered past and looks to the future * Kirkus Review * A lively read that captures many of the capital’s contradictions * Economist * With the perspective of a foreigner, and two decades as a Paris resident behind him, Kuper chronicles the paradoxical complexities of Parisian life in his memoir — ‘Best summer books of 2024’ * Financial Times * Simon Kuper does a great job in conveying why Paris is a city that is impossible to embrace and impossible to resist … very funny * Irish Examiner * A must-read for admirers of the City of Light — Mark Brocklesby * Jersey Evening Post * Praise for Chums:

‘A searing onslaught on the smirking Oxford insinuation that politics is all just a game. It isn’t. It matters — Matthew Parris A gripping read … exquisite and depressing in equal measure — Matthew Syed * Sunday Times * A sparkling firework of a book — Lynn Barber * Spectator * Incisive, insightful and timely — Richard Beard * New Statesman * Fascinating … The picture Kuper draws is of a nation with a decadent and deeply unprofessional ruling class, a diagnosis with which it is impossible to disagree — Hugo Rifkind * The Times *