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A review by iridescencedeep
Paris Café: The Select Crowd by Noël Riley Fitch, Rick Tulka
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Cute little book! Picked it up while browsing the shelves at a local library because I’m a sucker for French stuff and stuff about intellectual life. This is right in the overlap!
Very short and sweet. At least half of the pages are dedicated to character portrairture of patrons, both past and present. The celebrities are labeled.
One of the chief praises of the book is that the Café Sélect, unlike most other storied Parisian cafes, has basically resisted cashing in on that legacy. (At least as of publication in 2007.) They don’t sell merch, and the food menu remains limited. If that’s as true as they say, it’s curious to me that the proprietors would authorize a book like this. The illustrator, Rick Tulka, is evidently a regular, but still. I’m curious if its publication affected the atmosphere negatively and/or the revenue positively.
There’s some good lessons here for people interested in building third places. Fitch talks a bit about the history of cafe culture and what people find valuable in it. Lasting community (“ ‘It is easier to change one’s mind,’ as one wag said, ‘than it is to change one’s café.’ “); a diverse milieu (says a waiter of 22 years, Didier: “It is a melting pot, a mixture of clients. People come to find the mix, they feel the mix; something happens.”); at its heyday, a warm drink 24 hours a day (no longer, sadly).
Also possibly useful as a starting point for a reference list of the who’s-who of a certain sect of intelligentsia. This occurred to me while I was reading the history section and then I reached the end and — lo and behold! — they provide an “Index: The Crowd,” featuring names like “Dali, Salvador …. 31” and “Sartre, Jean-Paul …. 31-32, 35.” This is a great touch and if I was more interested in this period of history I would genuinely make.a copy of the list.
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Housekeeping note: There’s two versions of this book on StoryGraph — not listed as alternate editions of each other, just two books. They each seem to get some things right. I’m holding a hard copy of the book; here’s the information:
Paris Café: The Sélect Crowd
by Noël Riley Fitch, drawing by Rick Tulka
Soft Skull Press / Brooklyn, NY / 2007
ISBN 978-1-933368-85-6
122 pages
Very short and sweet. At least half of the pages are dedicated to character portrairture of patrons, both past and present. The celebrities are labeled.
One of the chief praises of the book is that the Café Sélect, unlike most other storied Parisian cafes, has basically resisted cashing in on that legacy. (At least as of publication in 2007.) They don’t sell merch, and the food menu remains limited. If that’s as true as they say, it’s curious to me that the proprietors would authorize a book like this. The illustrator, Rick Tulka, is evidently a regular, but still. I’m curious if its publication affected the atmosphere negatively and/or the revenue positively.
There’s some good lessons here for people interested in building third places. Fitch talks a bit about the history of cafe culture and what people find valuable in it. Lasting community (“ ‘It is easier to change one’s mind,’ as one wag said, ‘than it is to change one’s café.’ “); a diverse milieu (says a waiter of 22 years, Didier: “It is a melting pot, a mixture of clients. People come to find the mix, they feel the mix; something happens.”); at its heyday, a warm drink 24 hours a day (no longer, sadly).
Also possibly useful as a starting point for a reference list of the who’s-who of a certain sect of intelligentsia. This occurred to me while I was reading the history section and then I reached the end and — lo and behold! — they provide an “Index: The Crowd,” featuring names like “Dali, Salvador …. 31” and “Sartre, Jean-Paul …. 31-32, 35.” This is a great touch and if I was more interested in this period of history I would genuinely make.a copy of the list.
---
Housekeeping note: There’s two versions of this book on StoryGraph — not listed as alternate editions of each other, just two books. They each seem to get some things right. I’m holding a hard copy of the book; here’s the information:
Paris Café: The Sélect Crowd
by Noël Riley Fitch, drawing by Rick Tulka
Soft Skull Press / Brooklyn, NY / 2007
ISBN 978-1-933368-85-6
122 pages