Quiet Corners of Rome

Author: David Downie
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1892145928
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This charming guidebook celebrates more than fifty of the most beautiful, tranquil, and often hidden places in the Eternal City: courtyards where mossy fountains splash; landscaped staircases clinging to Rome's Seven Hills; cool, quiet cloisters; atmospheric ruins dating to the days of Caesar; gorgeous gardens scented by boxwood and bay trees. Some of Rome's quiet corners boast breathtaking views, while others are filled with archaeological or architectural details, from crumbling aqueducts or majestic stone archways, to Renaissance garden follies, frescoed walls, and baroque fountains. Author David Downie and photographer Alison Harris climb the Janiculum-the highest hill within Rome's ancient walled fortifications-and find hidden benches with see-forever views; a church forecourt where Goethe sat and sighed, drinking in the inspiration; and the park of a once-noble villa now luxuriantly overgrown, its long trellises knotted with fragrant wisteria and climbing roses. On the Palatine, they find a narrow lane that passes over the ancient ruins, affording rare glimpses of the Forum and Colosseum, free of charge and with no wait. Beyond the Domus Aurea of Emperor Nero, they discover a sweeping staircase from a century ago and the massive brick remains of a temple to Isis. Even the most intrepid travelers who think of themselves as Rome “insiders” will be surprised when they follow the author and photographer of this guidebook through the Roman labyrinth. Historical anecdotes and quotations from antiquity to the present day are woven throughout the text, bringing Rome alive.

A Passion for Paris

Author: David Downie
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250043158
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
"A top-notch walking tour of Paris. . . . The author's encyclopedic knowledge of the city and its artists grants him a mystical gift of access: doors left ajar and carriage gates left open foster his search for the city's magical story. Anyone who loves Paris will adore this joyful book. Readers visiting the city are advised to take it with them to discover countless new experiences." —Kirkus Reviews (starred) A unique combination of memoir, history, and travelogue, this is author David Downie's irreverent quest to uncover why Paris is the world's most romantic city—and has been for over 150 years. Abounding in secluded, atmospheric parks, artists' studios, cafes, restaurants and streets little changed since the 1800s, Paris exudes romance. The art and architecture, the cityscape, riverbanks, and the unparalleled quality of daily life are part of the equation. But the city's allure derives equally from hidden sources: querulous inhabitants, a bizarre culture of heroic negativity, and a rich historical past supplying enigmas, pleasures and challenges. Rarely do visitors suspect the glamor and chic and the carefree atmosphere of the City of Light grew from and still feed off the dark fountainheads of riot, rebellion, mayhem and melancholy—and the subversive literature, art and music of the Romantic Age. Weaving together his own with the lives and loves of Victor Hugo, Georges Sand, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, Nadar and other great Romantics Downie delights in the city's secular romantic pilgrimage sites asking , Why Paris, not Venice or Rome—the tap root of "romance"—or Berlin, Vienna and London—where the earliest Romantics built castles-in-the-air and sang odes to nightingales? Read A Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light and find out.

Discourses (Books 1 and 2)

Author: Epictetus
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486149544
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Book Description
The ne plus ultra of Stoicism, Discourses outline clear-cut principles of right conduct and true thinking, offering secular thinkers a mode of reasoning that dismisses the strictures of absolutism and emotionalism in exchange for a more peaceful and productive life. The Discourses report wide-ranging discussions between Epictetus and his students.

The Battle for Rome

Author: Robert Katz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743216425
Category : Rome (Italy)
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Book Description
This landmark work draws on newly released documents and firsthand accounts to tell the dramatic story of Rome's dark days during the German occupation. 8-pages of photos. 2 maps.

A Taste of Paris

Author: David Downie
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250082951
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
In his trademark witty and informative style, David Downie embarks on a quest to discover “What is it about the history of Paris that has made it a food lover’s paradise?” Long before Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake!” (actually, it was brioche), the Romans of Paris devoured foie gras, and live oysters rushed in from the Atlantic; one Medieval cookbook describes a thirty-two part meal featuring hare stew, eel soup, and honeyed wine; during the last great banquet at Versailles a year before the Revolution the gourmand Louis XVI savored thirty-two main dishes and sixteen desserts; yet, in 1812, Grimod de la Reynière, the father of French gastronomy, regaled guests with fifty-two courses, fifteen wines, three types of coffee, and seventeen liqueurs. Following the contours of history and the geography of the city, Downie sweeps readers on an insider’s gourmet walking tour of Paris and its environs in A Taste of Paris, revealing the locations of Roman butcher shops, classic Belle Epoque bistros serving diners today and Marie Antoinette’s exquisite vegetable garden that still supplies produce, no longer to the unfortunate queen, but to the legendary Alain Ducasse and his stylish restaurant inside the palace of Versailles. Along the way, readers learn why the rich culinary heritage of France still makes Paris the ultimate arbiter in the world of food.

In the Quiet Corner

Author: Samuel Dickey Gordon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christian life
Languages : en
Pages : 136

Book Description

The Reach of Rome

Author: Derek Williams
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 125008380X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 486

Book Description
The Roman Empire was one of the most powerful forces in history. However, few people realize that this vast empire was guarded by one frontier, a series of natural and man-made barriers, including Hadrian's Wall. It is impossible to have a true understanding of the Roman Empire without first investigating the scope of this amazing frontier. The boundary ran for roughly 4,000 miles--from Britain to Morocco via the Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates, the Syrian Desert, and the Saharan fringes; reinforced by walls, ditches, palisades, watchtowers, and forts. It absorbed virtually the whole imperial army, enclosed three and a half million square miles, and defended forty provinces (now thirty countries) and perhaps eighty million Roman subjects. In protecting the empire the frontier made a substantial contribution to the Pax Romana and ultimately to preserving the inheritance of future Europe. Yet this static mode of defense ran counter to Rome's tradition of mobile warfare and her taste for glory, born of centuries of conquest. The emperors' choice of a passive strategy promoted lassitude and conservatism, allowing the military initiative slowly to pass into barbarian hands. The Reach of Rome is the first book to describe the entire length of the amazing imperial frontier. It traces the political forces that created it and portrays those who commanded and manned it, as well as those against whom it was held. It relates the frontier's rise, pre-eminence, crises, and collapse and assesses its meaning for history and its legacies to the post-Roman world. Finally, it also tells the story of the explorers who rediscovered its lost works and describes the nature and location of the surviving remains. Includes thirty beautifully designed maps.

Walking Rome

Author: Katie Parla
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426208723
Category : Rome (Italy)
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Presents itineraries for fifteen walking tours in Rome, Italy, with descriptions of the attractions located along each route; information about the history, architecture, and culture of the city; maps; and photographs.

Paris, Paris

Author: David Downie
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307886093
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
“Beautifully written and refreshingly original . . . makes us see [Paris] in a different light.”—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review Swapping his native San Francisco for the City of Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-way ticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of a cross-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floor walk-up garret near the Champs-Elysées to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens and the aristocratic Île Saint-Louis midstream in the Seine. Downie wound up living in the chic Marais district, married to the Paris-born American photographer Alison Harris, an equally incurable walker and chronicler. Ten books and a quarter-century later, he still spends several hours every day rambling through Paris, and writing about the city he loves. An irreverent, witty romp featuring thirty-one short prose sketches of people, places and daily life, Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light ranges from the glamorous to the least-known corners and characters of the world’s favorite city. Photographs by Alison Harris. Praise for Paris, Paris “I loved his collection of essays and anyone who’s visited Paris in the past, or plans to visit in the future, will be equally charmed as well.”—David Lebovitz, author of The Sweet Life in Paris “[A] quirky, personal, independent view of the city, its history and its people”—Mavis Gallant “Gives fresh poetic insight into the city . . . a voyage into ‘the bends and recesses, the jagged edges, the secret interiors’ [of Paris].”—Departures

The Gardener of Eden

Author: David Downie
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643131168
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
A haunting and luminous novelthat explores the dark secrets lurking beneath the stunning natural beauty of a dying timber town. A mysterious beachcomber appears one day on the coastal bluffs near Carverville, whose best days are long behind it. Who is he, and why has he returned after nearly forty years? Carverville’s prodigal son, James, serendipitously finds work at the Eden Seaside Resort & Cottages, a gentrified motel, but soon finds his homecoming taking a sinister turn when he and a local teenager make a gruesome discovery, which force him to reckon with the ghosts of his past—and the dangers of the present. Rumors, distrust, and conspiracies spread among the townsfolk, all of them seemingly trapped in their claustrophobic and isolated world. But is there something even more sinister at work than mere fear of outsiders? In The Gardener of Eden, David Downie weaves an intricate and compelling narrative of redemption, revenge, justice, and love—and the price of secrecy, as a community grapples with its tortured past and frightening future.