Short Synopsis
From Elaine Sciolino comes this delightful and beguiling look at life on one of Paris's most storied streets.

Full Synopsis
Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief of the New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favorite Parisian street, offering an homage to street life and the pleasures of Parisian living. While many cities suffer from the leveling effects of globalization, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. On this street, the patron saint of France was beheaded and the Jesuits took their first vows. It was here that Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted circus acrobats, Emile Zola situated a lesbian dinner club in his novel Nana, and François Truffaut filmed scenes from The 400 Blows. Sciolino reveals the charms and idiosyncrasies of this street and its longtime residents—the Tunisian greengrocer, the husband-and-wife cheesemongers, the showman who's been running a transvestite cabaret for more than half a century, the owner of a 100-year-old bookstore, the woman who repairs eighteenth-century mercury barometers—bringing Paris alive in all of its unique majesty. The Only Street in Paris will make listeners hungry for Paris, for cheese and wine, and for the kind of street life that is all too quickly disappearing.

"[Sciolino's] facts are intriguing and skillfully woven together…" ---The New York Times Sunday Book Review

"The atmosphere on rue des Martyrs is refreshing and enticing in our modern world." ---Library Journal Starred Review

"Readers familiar with Sciolino's dispatches to the New York Times will value her deft reporting and witty prose." ---Booklist

"A pungent evocation of the conflict and compromise between tradition and innovation that define modern urbanism." ---Kirkus

"Readers will appreciate her mixture of the tenacity of journalism and a warm memoir-like quality." ---Publishers Weekly

Library Journal Review