David Lebovitz’s latest book, The Sweet Life in Paris, is a tell-it-as-it-is account of a foreigner’s experiences in Paris, a personal account and yet an account that could be the story of any one of us expats in Paris. Minus the expert pastry chef part of course…
Lebovitz gives wonderful recommendations for pastry and sweet shops and other useful (culinary and non-culinary) resources in Paris. And if you would like more of those recommendations, check out his new Paris Pastries E-book or Iphone App.
But for me, it was not so much Lebovitz’s culinary expertise that engaged me. Instead, it was his way of conveying the humor and irony in the most mundane of Parisian scenes with an unafraid wittiness that kept me turning pages. While reading this book, so many times I caught myself saying, “That is so true!” or, “That is exactly what happened to me!”
Lebovitz’s advice on how to not get pushed around or cut in line, for example, in the chapter “Les Bousculeurs,” will strike a chord with any expat living in Paris, after the initial romantic aura has worn off and you have set aside those rose-tinted glasses. I laughed the hardest at Lebovitz’s description of French coffee (his words may not be appropriate for young audiences and I, for one, 100% agree. Any expat being truthful will concede that French coffee is at best a bad joke.)
It’s not all La Vie en Rose, that is for sure. And yet it is clear from Lebovitz’s stories, and so many of us agree, there’s still nothing that compares to living in Paris.
You can purchase The Sweet Life in Paris on Amazon.com by clicking on the book under “Abby’s Picks” on the right sidebar.
