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Published Apr 2013
832 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
Internationally bestselling author Edward Rutherfurd has enchanted millions of readers with his sweeping, multigenerational dramas that illuminate the great achievements and travails throughout history. In this breathtaking saga of love, war, art, and intrigue, Rutherfurd has set his sights on the most magnificent city in the world: Paris.
Moving back and forth in time across centuries, the story unfolds through intimate and vivid tales of self-discovery, divided loyalties , passion, and long-kept secrets of characters both fictional and real, all set against the backdrop of the glorious city - from the building of Notre Dame to the dangerous machinations of Cardinal Richlieu; from the glittering court of Versailles to the violence of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune; from the hedonism of the Belle Époque, the heyday of the impressionists, to the tragedy of the First World War; from the 1920s when the writers of the Lost Generation could be found drinking at Les Deux Magots to the Nazi occupation, the heroic efforts of the French Resistance, and the 1968 student revolt.
With his unrivaled blend of impeccable research and narrative verve, Rutherfurd weaves an extraordinary narrative tapestry that captures all the glory of Paris. More richly detailed, more thrilling, and more romantic then anything Rutherfurd has written before, Paris: The Novel wonderfully illuminates hundreds of years in the City of Light and Love and brings the sights, scents, and tastes of Paris to sumptuous life.
"Utilizing his trademark combination of real-life and fictional characters, [Rutherford] stitches their individual stories and experiences together in order to humanize and personalize the emergence of a mighty metropolis over a period of 2,000 years." - Booklist
"For all its merits, Rutherfurd's latest is too big and too professorial for comfort - Edmund White could have written his own À la recherche du temps perdu in the same space." - Kirkus
"[Rutherford's] fictitious characters mingle with historic personages and both move naturally amidst the sights, sounds, events, and even scents of this cherished, ever-changing city. A full immersion reading experience." - Barnes and Noble
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edward Rutherfurd was born in England, in the cathedral city of Salisbury. Educated locally, and at the universities of Cambridge, and Stanford, California, he worked in political research, bookselling and publishing. After numerous attempts to write books and plays, he finally abandoned his career in the book trade in 1983, and returned to his childhood home to write Sarum, a historical novel with a ten-thousand year story, set in the area around the ancient monument of Stonehenge, and Salisbury. Four years later, when the book was published, it became an instant international bestseller, remaining 23 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. Since then he has written: Russka, a novel of Russia; London; The Forest, set in England's New Forest which lies close by Sarum, and two novels ...
... Full Biography
Link to Edward Rutherfurd's Website
Name Pronunciation
Edward Rutherfurd: ruther-ferd (ruther rhymes with mother)
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