Patrons, Brokers and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France
A bold new study of politics and power in 17th-century France, this book argues that the French Crown centralized its power nationally by changing the way it delegated its royal patronage in the provinces. During this period, the royal government of Paris gradually extended its sphere of control by taking power away from the powerful and potentially disloyal provincial governors and nobility and instead putting it in the hands of provincial power brokers--regional notables who cooperated with the Paris ministers in exchange for their patronage.
The Book of Salt serves up a wholly original take on Paris in the 1930s through the eyes of Binh, the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Viewing his famous mesdames and their entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binh observes their domestic entanglements while seeking his own place in the world. In a mesmerizing tale of yearning and betrayal, Monique Truong explores Paris from the salons of its artists to the dark nightlife of its outsiders and exiles.
Peter Haskell, the debonair star of Five Days in Paris, has it all: a beautiful wife, three children, and a dreamy job. He's a magnate at one of the world's largest pharmaceutical conglomerates, Viotec, on the brink of revolutionizing cancer treatment. "It would be Peter's one major contribution to the human race," says the narrator--and if he can get it on the fast track toward approval by the Food and Drug Administration, he can mitigate the hell of chemotherapy for patients worldwide. Heady stuff, but it's nothing compared to what Peter finds in Paris at his favorite hotel, the Ritz, which he likens to heaven.
In her 57th bestselling novel, Danielle Steel brilliantly chronicles the roller-coaster ride of dating the second time around—and tells a captivating story of the surprises one woman encounters when she’s thrust into the terrifying, exhilarating world of the Dating Game.Paris Armstrong never saw it coming. With two grown children and a lovely home in Connecticut, Paris was happy with her marriage, her family, her life. So when her husband of twenty-four years said they needed to talk, Paris couldn’t imagine what he was about to say.“I want a divorce,” Peter tells her. Just like that, the husband she adored had dumped her for a younger woman.
The only thing rarer than the vintage editions Cotton Malone sells in his Copenhagen bookshop is the time he actually gets to spend there. Retirement has been anything but relaxing for the onetime U.S. government operative, who's been drawn into one perilous adventure after another, crisscrossing the globe from the Sinai Desert to Antarctica, while racing to uncover some of the most precious secrets in recorded history.
