Into a Paris Quartier: Reine Margot's Chapel and Other Haunts of St.-Germain (National Geographic Directions) [Idioma Inglés] - Tapa blanda

Modern St.-Germain is lively and prosperous, and fifty years ago its heady mix of jazz and existentialism defined urbane cool, but Johnson takes a longer view. "Beside the shades of Jean-Paul Sartre and Edith Piaf," she writes, "there is another crowd of resident ghosts... misty figures in plumed hats whose fortunes and passions were enacted among these beautiful, imposing buildings." From her kitchen window, she looks out on a chapel begun by Reine Margot, wife of Henri IV; nearby streets are haunted by the shades of two sinister cardinals, Mazarin and Richelieu, as well as four famed queens and at least five kings. Delacroix, Corot, Ingres, David, and Manet all lived in St.-Germain; Oscar Wilde died there; and everybody who was anybody visited sooner or later.

Diane Johnson is a travel writer, biographer, essayist and--most notably--a novelist and three-time National Book Award Finalist, most recently for Le Divorce, a national bestseller which became a major motion picture. Her next novel, Le Mariage (2000) also made bestseller lists from the Boston Globe to the San Francisco Chronicle, and was a New York Times Book Review "Notable Book" for 2000. Johnson now divides her time between Paris and San Francisco.