{"title":"Books by Agnès Poirier","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781408857472","title":"Left Bank","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Rich and funny' Julian Barnes, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Poirier's hugely enjoyable, quick-witted and richly anecdotal book is \u003ci\u003emagnifique\u003c\/i\u003e' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA captivating portrait of those who lived, loved, fought, played and flourished in Paris between 1940 and 1950 and whose intellectual and artistic output still influences us today.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the horrors of the Second World War, Paris was the place where the world's most original voices of the time came – among them Norman Mailer, Miles Davis, Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin, Juliette Greco, Alberto Giacometti, Saul Bellow and Arthur Koestler. Fuelled by the elation of the Liberation, these pioneers hoped to find an alternative to the Capitalist and Communist models for life, art and politics – a Third Way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAgnès Poirier transports us to a time when Paris was at the heart of all that was new and brave and controversial, skilfully weaving together a collage of images and destinies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204361420978,"sku":"9781408857472","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781408857472.jpg?v=1786020029"},{"product_id":"9781786079916","title":"Notre-Dame","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe miraculous history of Notre Dame de Paris – its construction, near destructions and survival against all odds\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Vivid and engrossing… the opening chapter repays the cover price.’ \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of The 2022 French Heritage Society Book Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe profound emotion felt around the world upon seeing images of Notre-Dame in flames opens up a series of questions: Why was everyone so deeply moved? Why does Notre-Dame so clearly crystallise what our civilisation is about? What makes ‘Our Lady of Paris’ the soul of a nation and a symbol of human achievement? What is it that speaks so directly to us today?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn answer, Agnès Poirier turns to the defining moments in Notre-Dame’s history. Beginning with the laying of the corner stone in 1163, she recounts the conversion of Henri IV to Catholicism, the coronation of Napoleon, Victor Hugo’s nineteenth-century campaign to preserve the cathedral, Baron Haussmann’s clearing of the streets in front of it, the Liberation in 1944, the 1950s film of \u003ci\u003eThe Hunchback of Notre-Dame\u003c\/i\u003e, starring Gina Lollobrigida and Anthony Quinn, and the state funeral of Charles de Gaulle, before returning to the present.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe conflict over Notre-Dame’s reconstruction promises to be fierce. Nothing short of a cultural war is already brewing between the wise and the daring, the sincere and the opportunist, historians and militants, the devout and secularists. It is here that Poirier reveals the deep malaise – \u003ci\u003egilet jaunes\u003c\/i\u003e and all – at the heart of the France.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304704029045,"sku":"9781786079916","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781786079916_6ce801db-6d69-4638-8a16-832745f05a70.jpg?v=1786025877"},{"product_id":"right-bank","title":"Right Bank","description":"Paris, 1885. As Victor Hugo’s funeral procession winds from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon before two million mourners, a new era is taking shape. In the cabarets, circuses, brothels, studios, salons and boulevards of the Right Bank, a hugely diverse crowd of artists, writers, performers, dealers and patrons cross paths, collide and together start to invent modern culture.   A very young Marcel Proust drifts through the salons while Freud arrives from Vienna in search of a method. Rodin and Camille Claudel circle each other as lovers and rivals. Debussy and Satie rethink music while Sarah Bernhardt rules the stage. Best-selling novelist Émile Zola publishes J’accuse in defence of Alfred Dreyfus, falsely accused of treason. Model and painter Suzanne Valadon, poet Anna de Noailles and patron Winnaretta Singer emerge as central figures. Degas and Mary Cassatt become close allies, while the English clown Foottit and the Cuban-born Chocolat become stars. Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin encounter Japanese prints that transform art, while Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan change our understanding of dance and movement.   As the century begins to turn, Freud publishes On the Interpretation of Dreams, Proust starts to write his modernist masterpiece, and a new generation, including Picasso, Colette, Rilke and Ravel, emerge into a world where department stores, electric lights, photography and early cinema are creating an exhilarating new mass culture of speed.   Written as street-level fresco and drawing on a vast range of letters, diaries and memoirs, Right Bank reveals the unexpected connections that made Belle Époque Paris the birthplace for a new way of experiencing modern life.   PRAISE FOR LEFT BANK'Combines rich and subtle intellectual history with all the pleasures of a great soap opera' Tom Holland'A tremendous achievement' William Boyd'Hugely enjoyable, quick-witted and richly anecdotal' The Times","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57695248122229,"sku":"9781526624376","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-agnes-poirier.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}