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  • A Passion for Paris

  • Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light
  • By: David Downie
  • Narrated by: Jean Brassard
  • Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
  • 3.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

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A Passion for Paris

By: David Downie
Narrated by: Jean Brassard
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Editorial reviews

"A top-notch walking tour of Paris.... The author's encyclopedic knowledge of the city and its artists grants him a mystical gift of access: doors left ajar and carriage gates left open foster his search for the city's magical story. Anyone who loves Paris will adore this joyful book. Readers visiting the city are advised to take it with them to discover countless new experiences." (Kirkus Reviews [starred])

Publisher's Summary

A unique combination of memoir, history, and travelogue, this is author David Downie's irreverent quest to uncover why Paris is the world's most romantic city - and has been for over 150 years.

Abounding in secluded, atmospheric parks, artists' studios, cafes, restaurants, and streets little changed since the 1800s, Paris exudes romance. The art and architecture, the cityscape, riverbanks, and the unparalleled quality of daily life are part of the equation.

But the city's allure derives equally from hidden sources: querulous inhabitants, a bizarre culture of heroic negativity, and a rich historical past supplying enigmas, pleasures, and challenges. Rarely do visitors suspect the glamor and chic and the carefree atmosphere of the City of Light grew from and still feed off the dark fountainheads of riot, rebellion, mayhem, and melancholy - and the subversive literature, art and music of the Romantic Age.

Weaving together his own with the lives and loves of Victor Hugo, Georges Sand, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, Nadar, and other great Romantics, Downie delights in the city's secular romantic pilgrimage sites asking , Why Paris, not Venice or Rome - the tap root of "romance" - or Berlin, Vienna, and London - where the earliest Romantics built castles-in-the-air and sang odes to nightingales? Listen to A Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light and find out.

©2015 David Downie (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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Great content, brought down by poor performance

The poor performance has detracted so much from this title. Especially at the beginning, and at times throughout the text is delivered with what sounds to me like mockery, almost, one could say, a sneer. Added to this is a frequent (but strangely inconsistent) tendency to stress the wrong syllable in words, for example, ignorance, observation, melancholy, and mischievous. This jars immensely. The fact that the words are pronounced correctly sometimes makes very weird listening.

In the segments when no mistakes were made and one is able to focus wholly on the content, this book is stimulating and informative. Sadly, all too often this listener's concentration has been disrupted by yet another mispronunciation. The author has been badly served by the reader.

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