Flatbush odyssey

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Edmund White

**From Amazon.com:** “One has the impression, reading *The Flâneur*, of having fallen into the hands of a highly distractible, somewhat eccentric poet and professor who is determined to show you a Paris you wouldn’t otherwise see…Edmund White tells such a good story that I’m ready to listen to anything he wants to talk about.”—*New York Times Book Review* A flâneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through city streets in search of adventure and fulfillment. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians. In the hands of the learned White, a walk through Paris is both a tour of its lush, sometimes prurient history and an evocation of the city’s spirit. The Flâneur leads us to bookshops and boutiques, monuments and palaces, giving us a glimpse into the inner human drama. Along the way we learn everything from the latest debates among French lawmakers to the juicy details of Colette’s life.

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David Leavitt

**From Goodreads:** David Leavitt brings the wonders and mysteries of Florence alive, illuminating why it is, and always has been, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The third in the critically-acclaimed Writer and the City Series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the cities they know best-Florence is a lively account of expatriate life in the 'city of the lily'. Why has Florence always drawn so many English and American visitors? (At the turn of the century, the Anglo-American population numbered more than thirty thousand.) Why have men and women fleeing sex scandals traditionally settled here? What is it about Florence that has made it so fascinating-and so repellent-to artists and writers over the years? Moving fleetly between present and past and exploring characters both real and fictional, Leavitt's narrative limns the history of the foreign colony from its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century until its demise under Mussolini, and considers the appeal of Florence to figures as diverse as Tchaikovsky, E.M. Forster, Ronald Firbank, and Mary McCarthy. Lesser-known episodes in Florentine history-the moving of Michelangelo's David, and the construction of temporary bridges by black American soldiers in the wake of the Second World War-are contrasted with images of Florence today (its vast pizza parlors and tourist culture). Leavitt also examines the city's portrayal in such novels and films as *A Room with a View, The Portrait of a Lady* and *Tea with Mussolini*.

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Mike Bryan

The ultimate road book, and arguably the finest, Uneasy Rider forgoes the traditional blue highways and scenic nooks and crannies left behind in America's tidal wake, and travels instead on six-lane blacktop into the heart of our society today. With Mike Bryan you're in the company of an adept listener and a funny, learned, and profoundly sympathetic man. His chosen beat stretches west from Texas to New Mexico and Arizona toward the City of Angels in the Golden State - the chimerical destination of any decent American pilgrim. Along the way he uncovers much that is new and revelatory about our nation and fellow citizens, a hard-working, various lot including snake ranchers and state troopers, truckers and hitchhikers, motel-keepers and visionaries large and small. Fair hearing is given to one and all, whether wheeler-dealers, immigrants, border smugglers, or people who became near-aboriginals when the interstate turned Route 66 into outback. And between these encounters Bryan contemplates history, both public - pioneering, roadmaking, assassination theories at Dealey Plaza, the oil business, agriculture, waste-dumping, gambling, you name it - and personal. The Bryan family comes from rural Texas, after all, though an ambivalent rootlessness has marked Bryan's own life - and is also, some claim, a defining characteristic for much of the population.

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Peter Genovese

"U.S. 1 runs through Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Miami, in addition to Caribou, Maine; Quonochontaug, Rhode Island; and Alma, Georgia.". "Genovese spent two years on U.S. 1, talking to everyone from doughnut makers, dolphin trainers, and swamp guides to real Miami vice cops and the keeper of the National Parasite Collection. With his unerring eye for detail, sense of humor, and understanding of human nature, Genovese takes readers on a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always illuminating 2,450-mile journey from Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida."--BOOK JACKET.