Authors in Conversation "Americans continue to visit Paris not just for Paris, but for 'Paris,'" Rosecrans Baldwin, author of Paris, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down, wrote in an email just before Bastille Day. "As if out of some collective nostalgia for what Paris should be, more than what it is." He was writing to Toby Barlow, author of Sharp Teeth and, most recently, Babayaga -- a novel of love, spies, and witches in 1950s Paris. In their exchange, Barlow and Baldwin discussed "Fake France," pommes frites, and the enchantments of the City of Light. Toby Barlow wrote:
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Obviously, the best novel of the year is Ellen Ullman's By Blood, the best nonfiction book Richard Lloyd Parry's People Who Eat Darkness, the best manifesto Jeff Speck's Walkable City, the best travel book (and the best-titled book) Rosecrans Baldwin's Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down, the best vampire book Brian McGreevy's Hemlock Grove, the best memoir Davy Rothbart's My Heart is an Idiot, the best debut Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.*
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With his "charming, hilarious account of la vie Parisienne,” Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down, about to hit bookstores, Rosecrans Baldwin set off on a two-week tour of U.S. towns (and one Vegas casino) named Paris. His assignment was to find out what Americans really think of the French; his full write-up, "Our French Connection," has just been published in the Morning News. But we were curious what this chronicler of "the real Paris" made of its American counterparts - if, perhaps, any of them had eclipsed the City of Light, and if it's truly possible to get tired of Paris.