‘La vie’ in ‘Paree’

 Colorful memoir of year in Paris

By Beverly Meyer

ELOISE JAMES offers,  in refreshing and sometimes delicious detail, a delightful journal of experiences she and her family encountered during their year living in the “city of lights.”

“Paris in Love” recounts, in easily digestible vignettes and essays (some just four or five sentences, others several pages), the  culinary  curiosity, people-watching and myriad  adjustments James and her family had to make.

Coming off a frightening diagnosis of breast cancer, James took a sabbatical from  giving lectures on Shakespeare  to move with her Italian husband and two children to a city that would  end up teaching her  a few lessons.

Befriended by the butcher,    adding  apricot desserts among her favorites, keeping her precocious 10-year-old on track at school and feeding the puppy of the  homeless man who lodged on a nearby corner—these and hundreds of other facets of

When the household hubbub reached one of its frequent peaks, James   resorted to  “substance abuse”—a trip out to La Grande Epicerie on rue de Sèvres to sample three different kinds of chocolate (oranges in robe, citron gingembre and noir aux écorces d’orange). The result? Restoration of calm. and  contentment

James’ memoir offers a pleasurable peek through the keyhole of her temporary Paris home.

Beverly Meyer is a copy editor

at The Free Lance–Star.

PARIS IN LOVE

By Eloise James

(Random House, $26,  410 pp.)

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