Lesbros

This absorbing compendium is an essential addition to the library of the armchair traveler and flâneur alike. Lavishly illustrated with 800 color photographs, this fact-packed treasury leads readers through the streets of Paris and, by pointing out unique locations and architectural oddities, as well as utilitarian objects whose functions have long been obscured with the passage of time, reveals a previously unnoticed city.

Organized by subject—fountains and wells; centuries-old shop signs; vestiges of wars and ancient Egypt; hotels of legend; civic measurement devices; traces of rites and superstitions; remarkable trees; sundials and meridians; equestrian Paris; romantic ruins; unusual tombs, stairways, and passageways; religious relics; mosaics; public barometers and thermometers; and hundreds more urban elements and anachronisms—this delightful guide deepens the reader’s knowledge and appreciation of Paris through the centuries.

In the introduction to her unusual encyclopedia of the Parisian streetscape, Dominique Lesbros writes, “a city is nothing if not a vast cabinet of curiosities.” Entrez! The book also includes three themed walks (along the city’s ancient walls, in the steps of Quasimodo, and through the French Revolution), as well as an index of street names.