Swapping his native SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA for the Cityof Light, travel writer David Downie found its way to Paris in 1986 on a one-wayticket, his head full of romantic notions. Interest and the legs of across-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floorwalk-up garret close to the Champs-Élysées to the old Montmartre haunts of thedoomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriantalleys from the Luxembourg Gardens, as well as the aristocratic Île Saint-Louismidstream in the Seine.

Downie finished up living in the chic Marais district,married to the Paris-born American professional photographer Alison Harris, an equallyincurable walker and chronicler. Ten books and a quarter-century later, hestill spends several hours every day rambling through Paris and writing aboutthe city he enjoys. An irreverent, witty romp offering thirty-one short prosesketches of people, places, and lifestyle, Paris, Paris: Trip in to the Cityof Light runs from the attractive towards the least-known corners andcharacters of the world’s favorite town.