Paris Cafe: The Select Crowd [Paperback]

Noel Riley Fitch (Author), Rick Tulka (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 28, 2007

Acclaimed author Noël Riley Fitch, abetted by noted artist Rick Tulka, serves the dish on Select, the famous Montparnasse café that for nearly nine decades has been so vital to Paris and its intellectual denizens: from Hemingway, Beauvoir, Picasso, James Baldwin, and George Plimpton to the writers and artists who continue to work quietly there in the back room or heatedly debate every topic imaginable into the night. The artists have their work on the walls; the novelists include the café setting in their fiction. The quiet and drama of the Sélect world illustrates the centrality of cafés — particularly this one — to Parisian social, cultural, and intellectual life. Blending pithy profiles and witty drawings of clientele and staff, the book is organized around a history of the café, its daily and seasonal rhythms, particular colorful patrons, and even its typical café/brasserie food (including a few recipes).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A tribute so pleasant and persuasive that swarming tourists may make it difficult for Fitch and Tulka to find a table." -- Kirkus

In this droll, delicious little volume,Fitch and Tulka provide an affectionate portrait of the Select Cafe, one of those famous Paris eateries that have served as candles to intellectual moths--French, American, and otherwise--for nearly a century. As Fitch reels off anecdotes about those who spent time writing, chatting, caffeinating, and dreaming in the Montparnasse spot, the book reads like a Who's Who of twentieth-century arts circles with cameo appearances by Hemingway, Bunuel, Brassaï, Giacometti, Beckett, Picasso, Noguchi, de Beauvoir, Satie, Poulenc, Baldwin, and Godard. The text, by the author of several books on American expatriates in Paris, is slender and sketchy, but that leaves more room for Tulka's marvelous line drawings, which capture the essences not only of the café's celebrity patrons but also its proprietors and waiters, along with numerous guests whose names are not known, but who are blithely immortalized. -- Booklist

Product Details

• Paperback: 122 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press (November 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933368853
• ISBN-13: 978-1933368856
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Travel > Europe > France > Paris

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars elegant drawings, January 6, 2008

By 

Tulka Fan (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paris Cafe: The Select Crowd (Paperback)

Worth buying for the elegant b/w drawings alone. Tulka's caricatures magnificently capture the essence of every individual depicted... as you look at each page you feel that you are actually sitting with him observing the staff and patrons. A great book for artists, people-watchers and Francophiles.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gem of a book about a famous café, December 29, 2007

By 

Raggett Peter (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paris Cafe: The Select Crowd (Paperback)

This book is a treat for anyone interested in Parisian café life. Noel Riley Fitch presents a history of Le Select, one of Paris' most famous brasseries and situated on Bvd Montparnasse. Added to this are Rick Tulka's superb caricatures of the staff and the customers who frequent Le Select. Highly recommended for any Anglophones who live in or are thinking of visiting France.
Francophones, don't worry. I believe that there is a good possibility that a French edition is in the pipeline.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inviting, real-life look at a legendary place, May 8, 2008

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Stamford, Connecticut) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paris Cafe: The Select Crowd (Paperback)

Author of a number of histories of literary Paris, as well as a study of Europe's "literary cafés," Noël Riley Fitch now does the trend of Americans writing about their favorite Parisian neighborhood one better by giving us a warm and charming portrait of her favorite Parisian café, Montparnasse's Le Sélect. Accompanied by wonderful illustrations (or, as the cover says, just "drawings") by Rick Tulka, this short book is an experience to savor, much like a trip to the café itself would be.

I've read a number of books over the last few months about Paris cafés, as my vicarious substitute for actually being in one. There's a great variety of such books, all trying in their own way to capture some of the ineffable (and perhaps exaggerated?) romantic charm of Parisian café-dom. Some are glossy photo albums, portraying cafés, brasseries, and restaurants in all their visual diversity. Others focus on the history of various cafés and their neighborhoods, while still others give us recipes designed to recreate café flavors and smells in our own homes. But "Paris Café: The Sélect Crowd" is the first such book I've seen that really takes a close, personal look at an author's own chosen café (in this case, one she shares with her illustrator). I found it a remarkably successful effort, and I feel like were I to visit Le Sélect someday, it wouldn't feel entirely foreign to me.

If I could improve anything, I might wish for more discussion of the people depicted in Tulka's evocative portraits, though there may not have been a way to do that while still respecting their privacy -- Le Sélect is, after all, a neighborhood institution. I also didn't particularly care for the odd covers and binding Soft Skull Press chose to clad this thing in: the cover is uniformly a quarter-inch wider than the pages inside, which made this somewhat awkward to hold. Besides that one wish and one complaint, however, this short book was a fine way to spend a few hours. I hope other authors rise to the challenge and produce similar looks at their own chosen café haunts.