Impossible City (eBook)

A sparkling firework of a book

A gripping read ... exquisite and depressing in equal measure

Simon Kuper does a great job in conveying why Paris is a city that is impossible to embrace and impossible to resist ... very funny

A lively read that captures many of the capital's contradictions

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

A portrait of Parisian society ... the style is elegant and flinty, the humour dry

Kuper has the journalist's touch of rendering clichés less clichéd and giving the personal a hint of universalism

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

An absorbing, affectionate, acutely observed, cliché-free study of contemporary Paris

Next time you travel to the former City of Light, take this book

One of the best books about Paris... deftly debunks the alarmist narratives [to] reveal a city of tolerance and nuance

[A] revealing memoir ... Kuper is a clear-eyed observer of all the history that is happening all around him ...for all the transformations of the past two decades, however, Kuper is always alert to the city's particularity

Incisive, insightful and timely

Highly readable and amusing prose ... Kuper is a charming guide, with a particularly good eye for the telling quote

A persuasive defence of the very idea of a city... full of warm but unsentimental depictions of Paris' communities... a reminder of the countless ways in which urban life remains one of the few efficient vaccines against bigotry and toxic nationalism

With a dry wit and a journalist's eye, Kuper unravels the layered past and looks to the future

A must-read for admirers of the City of Light

Informative and enlightening with a sarcastic touch... puts us on the streets themselves and lets us mingle