Publication Day: Paris Was Ours at Idlewild Books

To celebrate the publication day of Penelope Rowlands’ fabulous Paris Was Ours, we’re giving away three copies. Just leave a comment here or on our Facebook page to enter. The anthology features essays by David Sedaris, Stacy Schiff, Judith Thurman, Joe Queenan, Lily Tuck, Diane Johnson, and more. An essential volume for any Francophile or armchair traveler. Below is a recap of the publication party held at Idlewild Books.

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Très chic. That’s how I would describe the crowd that packed into NYC’s travel-themed bookstore, Idlewild Books, on Friday night to support Paris Was Ours, the recently-released anthology edited by Penelope Rowlands.

After a little French wine, Penelope and Algonquin’s publisher, Elisabeth Scharlatt, took the stage to introduce contributors Lily Tuck and Joe Queenan, who read excerpts from their Paris Was Ours essays. Both charmed the crowd:

Lily with her essay about the difficulties of majoring in American Literature while studying abroad in Paris as a divorced mother of three (she, appropriately, stumbled over the word “heterodiegetic” while describing the trials of diagramming the 59 chapters of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying for a sadistic professeur);

and Joe Queenan with descriptions of his hilarious encounters trying to pick up Parisian chicks with the same lens prescription he had after losing his (too-expensive-to-replace) glasses while living in France.

It was the parfait way to spend a Friday evening!

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–Emily Parliman, Publisher’s Assistant

Tags: David Sedaris, Diane Johnson, Elisabeth Scharlatt, Idlewild Books, Joe Queenan, Judith Thurman, Lily Tuck, Paris Was Ours, Penelope Rowlands, Stacy Schiff