100 Books Like French Moderne

This guide to Paris is a one-of-a-kind, thoroughly personal—almost private—address book that takes in such fanciful themes as acupuncturists, beekeepers, Bouquinistes, cabarets, fancy dress, Esperanto, and rose gardens.

It provides a vision of Paris that is so idiosyncratic, so fully lived, so persuasive and contagious, so far from cliché, pandering, and pretention, that I discover the city anew each time I browse its beautiful, letterpress printed pages. I think I first met Ivan and Benoît, the founders of Astier de Villatte, when I interviewed them for the first edition of Makers Paris, and since then, they have become my compass for living a bold life of beauty, fun, and freedom.

As the much-missed Karl Lagerfeld once said, “Fashion is a train that waits for nobody.” And that train comes whooshing through Paris quite a lot.

This book captures some of the inimitable energy and agitation of Paris Fashion Week, as self-taught photographer Meyabe covers six seasons—men’s, women’s, and couture—over a single year. It includes an introduction by local fashion hero Loïc Prigent and is published by my friends Alex and Marie from Ofr. (who also published Makers Paris #2).

Ofr. is an indie arts bookshop, gallery and publisher, always in the moment, that channels a certain bohemian spirit proper to Paris: “Open, Free and Ready”.

The much-loved English bookshop Shakespeare and Company can at times feel like a victim of its own success (every so often I try and imagine solutions as if I were trying to save Venice!), but the place remains a refuge for writers and readers and a true beacon of bohemian values.

In my first Makers book, owner Sylvia remembers her father George describing Paris: “where poetry is part of life; where men are poets and life is a poem.” And now the bookshop has published its own collection of poems about Paris, illustrated with beautiful line drawings by the Italian illustrator Matteo Pericoli.

Alongside verses by Rimbaud, Gregory Corso, or Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pericoli imagines the views from windows of poets who, at one time or another, made their homes here, like Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas or Charles Baudelaire, or indeed Shakespeare and Company’s own beautiful view across the… show more.

Paris has an incredibly vibrant food scene, and some of that energy is generated by a shapeshifting community of expat chefs and foodies. Hugh Corcoran, a Belfast born writer and cook, spent the most part of the last decade living and working in France, in Paris and beyond.

This lovely book is a collection of vignettes from his travels, simply and honestly written, remembering people he met along the way and the meals they shared. Each story ends with a recipe, including some French classics like roast chicken, gratin dauphinois, or carottes râpées.

If the book’s tone is gentle, it’s actually an urgent call to action, as the epigraph confirms: “Friends and neighbors, wet your mouths, for after death you won’t touch another drop.”

We're back to drinks proper with another feast for the eyes. This book has a deep appeal to me because I've always been a francophile. France has pulled at me from the earliest family holidays through to the years I lived in Paris.

Now, back in London, there's a bittersweet nostalgia in the mix. This book captures a lot of what I miss from those years because it's not just about the drinks but also the culture that surrounds them.

It reminds me that a drink is always an occasion. It doesn't have to be a fancy one either. There's the domestic and quotidian side, too, like preparing a café au lait the French way in one of those ridiculous footed bowls; they're totally useless to drink from yet somehow all the more appealing for it.

Another beautiful book with beautiful photography by a dear friend in Paris, Rebekah Peppler. This James Beard nominated recipe book takes you through how to create a classic apéro through the seasons, and then inventive riffs. I’ve personally tried so many of these recipes and they have you dreaming and yearning for that moment with friends, setting suns, chilled glasses and the sound of crystal in celebration of another day.

Toni Tipton Martin is one of the leading authorities on the history of food and drink in the United States and on African American influence on culinary traditions in particular. Drawing from her vast private library of Black-authored cookbooks, she has penned several multi-award-winning books inspired by the collection, each of which is a must-read (and indeed partly inspired me to write my own book-about-books).

In her most recent effort, Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice, she brings cocktail recipes from these long-forgotten books to life – including many from known and unknown female writers - and expertly weaves them with rich historical details and insightful personal stories. While many of the cocktails were familiar to me, this book really made me appreciate them on a whole new level.

Ending as I began, on the lighter side of things, I think that The Bloody Mary makes for an interesting single subject cocktail book as one can find. From its convoluted origins to its over-the-top renditions, the bloody mary is one of the very few recipes that have been consistently enjoyed from the Prohibition era throughout the 20th century and onward to today. Most proponents of the drink all claim to make the best one, so understanding the nuances of something as fun and all-encompassing as this brunch-time favorite, is bound to keep conversations going. And if nothing else, if you’re going to begin a drinker’s library, you may as well start with the one that’s the first drink of the day. 

Without a doubt, David Wondrich is the preeminent cocktail historian of our time. If that doesn’t sound like a real thing…well, just start reading his work.

No one else has his mastery of our drinking history or a gift for communicating all its twists and turns. Every book he’s written is a great read, but this book is the best jumping-off point, following the story of mid-19th-century bartender Jerry Thomas with colorful tales and excellent recipes.  

This could be the most bizarre monograph you will ever have on your bookshelf. The subtitle is no lie: for every letter of the alphabet, Zmirak has assembled an entertaining assortment of food recipes, drinking songs, history lessons, wine suggestions, or one of the Ten Commandments impishly explained. In the dedication, Zmirak and contributing author Denise Matychowiak list as their inspirations Pope Benedict XVI, food authors Paula Wolfert and M.F.K. Fisher, and Weird Al Yankovic. Need I say more?