I am truly excited to be giving away a copy of Café Society -Time Suspended: The Cafés & Bistros of Paris by Joanie Osburn. I have received dozens of books in the past 17 years to giveaway on Eye Prefer Paris, and Café Society is one of my favorites. The comprehensive, coffee table book is divided into 14 Parts along with hundreds of glorious photos the author, Joanie Osburn took in the 30 plus years she has been coming to Paris.
- Paris and its Cafes
- The Look and the Feel
- The Food & Drink
- Café Society
- The People Who Make Café Society
- The Time of the Day
- The Time of the Year
- Les Quartiers: Historic, Trendy, & Local Haunts
- In Search of Lost Time
- The Paris Café in the Early Twentieth Century
- Looking Forward: Trending in a Good Way
- A Little History: From Coffee to Café
- Au Revoir …et a bientôt
- Adresses
The book is exquisitely designed by my friend and great designer Louise Brody, and I’ve browsed through it at least a half a dozen times so far, fully devouring it.
The tenth person who leaves a comment on the bottom of this post today on this link
https://www.ipreferparis.net/2023/05/book-giveaway-café-society-by-joanie-osburn.html
will receive a copy of Café Society.
Please note, the book must be sent to a U.S. address.
If you don’t win the contest, I still urge you to buy Café Society, you will treasure it.
CLICK HERE to order on Amazon
I had the pleasure of interviewing Joanie Osburn, the author, when she was in Paris last month promoting the book at her favorite café, Le Select on Blvd. Montparnasse. Below are the questions and answers.
When was the first time you visited Paris and what was the first café you visited?
Decades ago, between Junior and Senior year at university. Café Flore and Deux Magots, of course, and there were no lines to get in.
I love the clever cover of the book. Please tell us about your cup collection.
Wherever I travel, I find that cafés are where you can get the sense of a place, the attitude of the people, the energy and spirit. The espresso cups are a beautiful memory for me of each café in each city or village I’ve visited. The design of each cup is beautiful on its own and I love how they look together.
If someone only has a few days in Paris, what three cafes do you recommend they go to?
Each arrondissement has wonderful cafés, so I do recommend wandering and finding some that are filled with locals. On rive gauche I like La Palette on art gallery street, rue de Seine, and Le Select in Montparnasse, among multitudes of other favorites. On rive droit, Au Petit Fer à Cheval, Fouquet’s, and Café Charlot are always lively and consistently good.
How many years did it take you to put together the book and how did you organize your research?
I started with the idea twenty years ago, but we had a very busy architecture studio, a showroom at the San Francisco Design Center, and a café and retail store in Napa, so I had to abandon the work until we slowed down these enterprises. I began working on the book in earnest in 2018. By then I had thousands of Paris café photos that I had taken with various cameras for decades. I organized the book into chapters, defining the key points of café life I wanted to highlight, and built the book in much the same way as a design project. It was released by my publisher December 27, 2022.
What are your top cafes for food?
Since my book is about the cafés and bistros of Paris, I’m going to include Bistro du Peintre, Le Mesturet, Café Varenne, Le Comptoir, L’Escargot Montorgueil, and Chez Paul.
What’s your favorite neighborhood in Paris and why?
Montparnasse is my territory. It was ground zero for artists, writers, and intellectuals from around the globe in Les années folles (our roaring 20’s) and I can’t stop reading every book about that time and those people. Nor can I stay away from the five haunts that have remained and retained their spirit: La Coupole, Le Select, Le Dôme, La Rotonde, and La Closerie des Lilas.
If you can invite one person, living or dead, to a café, who would it be?
Audrey Hepburn is having a moment in Paris now, so let’s invite her.
The book has been sent to several VIPs. Can you tell us who they are?
President Macron, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, and President Biden all have the book. It’s available at Amazon, Rizzoli, Barnes and Noble, Shakespeare and Co., the Drugstore, Musée Carnavalet, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Galeries Lafayette, and Galignani book shop, Paris.
You are visiting Vienna after Paris. How do you compare their cafes with the Paris cafes?
They are so very different. In Vienna, Prague, and Budapest cafés are mostly indoors only with few terraces. They serve various coffees with whipped cream, cakes, and minimal to no food. The spirit is subdued, unlike the lively Paris cafés. Sadly, many beautiful old cafés in Central Europe have been remodeled and have lost their original architectural features.
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