I accuse this book of false advertising.

An hour or so into this audiobook I went back to re-read the promotional blurb, thinking that I must have misread it. I was expecting a book that would combine a treatise on the benefits of walking, along with notes & history of Paris and its architecture. This book has little to nothing to do with walking, and is more about the author than about the City of Love. ( )

If you can get past the author's arrogance, you find that about half of the book isn't about Paris or people in Paris at all. The first bit was devoted to deriding those poor souls who, wearing their beige raincoat and comfortable shoes, consult a map during their walk in Paris. What the hell does Baxter want them to wear? A Chanel suit and four-inch spiked heels? And what better way to figure out which direction to walk in than to consult a map? He seems to simply look down his nose at anyone who doesn't know his way around the city. And he seems to think this is something unique to Paris, as if no one wears comfortable shoes or carries a map when they first visit New York, London, or Barcelona.

Before you read about Paris, you learn that Baxter lives in the building where some famous person (I forget who, Sylvia Beach, maybe?) lived. And so-and-so lived down the street, another lived across the road, etc. Baxter doesn't need a map because he lives in Paris. I wonder if he needed a map when he first arrived. Probably not. He is married to a French woman and his mother-in-law lives in a Chateau somewhere out of town. Is this giving you an interesting impression of Paris?

Baxter does finally get around to including the city and tells some stories and anecdotes of interest. I finished the book while in Avignon for a few days and left the book in my hotel room for someone else to slog through. Maybe that person will like the book better than I did. ( )

Delightful short stories about walking in Paris ( )

Better than I thought it was going to be; because I thought it was going to be, "OMG, Paris is so freaking beautiful, this is beautiful, that's beautiful, OMG Paris is so beautiful." Yawn! It wasn't that. It bounced around severely. It was kind of tied together by the author's recounting of how he stumbled into a job giving walking tours of Paris; and some of the fun things he includes on his tours. I liked that all the chapters were super-short. I liked the amount of himself he put into the book - enough so you aren't wondering who in the world is speaking to you; but not so much that it's a Me-Me-Me book, which is also boring. Altogether, you'd think that I'd love it. Ultimately, though I hate to sound like an ugly American or a jaded snob, I went to Paris once and I wasn't all that crazy about it. I prefer Italy. ( )

It was ok; was hoping it would be more of a photographic book. Reminded me of good times in Paris, though. ( )