Buying a Piece of Paris
A Memoir
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Buying a Piece of Paris is a charming and witty love song to the most beautiful city in the world.
Paris has seduced many admirers, but for Ellie Nielsen it's true love. So deep is her infatuation that she'll only be satisfied with a little place to call her own. The object of her desire seems so simple: the sort of apartment she's seen a thousand times in magazines and movies. Something effortlessly charming, and quirky, and old— and expertly decorated. Something exuding character and Parisian chic. Something quintessentially French.
Little does she realize that the French real estate scene is not quite the dreamscape she'd imagined. With two weeks to find and secure an apartment, and a cursory grasp of the language, Ellie embarks on a mad dash through the streets of Paris, negotiating the fraught world of snobby real estate agents, xenophobic bankers and perplexed Parisian naysayers. Thwarted at every turn, in the end it only makes her more determined to succeed.
With her trusty French phrasebook in hand, and plucked up reserves of savoir faire, Ellie undertakes the adventure of a lifetime. Beauty is everywhere even if, like all true romances, there are many obstacles to be overcome. But then, c'est toujours comme ça à Paris. Written with great verve and a superb ear for language, Buying a Piece of Paris is a joy to read and a pleasure to dream about.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nielsen, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, takes the reader on her search for a dream apartment in Paris armed with only a limited ability to speak French but an enormous amount of hope. When Nielsen's husband agrees to buy their own pied- -terre in Paris ("Even our accountant thinks it's a good idea"), she starts her crash course in the Parisian real estate market, a world away from her native Australia, in custom as well as distance. Entering her first real estate office, Nielsen encounters the particulars of buying a piece of Paris: apartments are sold by the meter, not by the number of rooms; a buyer generally makes an offer immediately after the first showing; and the current owner could be lingering in the dining room as the apartment is shown. From dark and crumbling to bright and strangely shaped, the apartments the Nielsens see are a side of Paris living they never knew existed; in the end, their dream comes true. Nielsen's breezy writing makes this a sweet memoir that would appeal most to those dreaming of having their own piece of Paris.