notanotherbookreview

https://www.mixcloud.com/WorldRadioParis/your-american-friend-in-paris-episode-14-joseph-harris/   Here is an interview to air in November with Joseph Harriss about JEAN GABIN and his significance  as artist and as a public figure, an "everyman" who came to personify France. J e an Gabin :  The Actor Who Was France The first biography in English of the iconic French film actor whose career and life mirrored both 20 th -century France and the early evolution of modern film. When Joseph Harriss published  T he Tallest Tower : Eiffel and the Belle Epoque, it was acclaimed as a definative book and it was written by an American. Now, the Paris based journalist has done it again with a different kind of icon in  Jean Gabin :  The Actor Who Was France (McFarland) .  Illustrated with more than 40 photographs, the book portrays in graphic detail G abin’s films and personal life, including his unhappy years in Hollywood and his la...

Cat Seto's IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS: An Artist's Sketchbook (Harper Design, April) is precious in the sense of rare and valuable, a jewel of a book that sparkles with wit, insight, and beauty.  This artist's book is organized around themes; color, pattern, perspective and rhythm. As Seto meanders curiously through Paris neighborhoods, local wonders take shape under her sure paint brush--whimsical, striking and often good enough to eat. The book begins with Monet's quote about color as .."my day-long obsession, joy and torment" and begins her journey at BERTHILLON.  Seto is in agreement with Monet, but with the addition of ice cream. As she said, "when you lay down a good oil or or watercolor that you can literally feel the purity of the color wash onto the canvas, The artful glaces did just that to my mouth." And of course she visually deconstructs the colors of the glace. Pattern takes us to JARDINS DES PLANTES, where she "spiraled up a st...