About

  • Essays and observations on books, culture, and life in the city of lights, by Lauren Elkin, a writer, reader, and native New Yorker.

    More about the blog here
    My Paris: where to eat, drink, and shop in les Paris de Maitresse
    Version française: MaîtresseVF

Complete Archives

HITOTOKI

  • Hitotoki — A narrative map of the world To submit to Hitotoki Paris, click here.

Literary events in Paris

What it looks like from here

  • www.flickr.com
    This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from maitresse. Make your own badge here.

Find Books Here

Blog powered by TypePad

goooooooogle

What I wrote

on travel

paris

"Portable Paris for the Home Enthusiast," Gridskipper, Jan 28, 2008

"Occult Paris," Gridskipper, Jan 23 2008

"Secondhand Paris Boutiques," Gridskipper, Jan 10 2008

"Paris for Philosophers," Gridskipper, Nov 27 2007

"Armstice Day Redux," Gridskipper, Nov 12 2007

"Get Melty in Paris," Gridskipper, Nov 5 2007

"Paris' Viaduc des Arts," Gridskipper, Oct 29 2007

"Shopping the 13th Arrondissement," Gridskipper, Oct 23 2007

"Gentry Lane's Paris in Satin and Lace," Gridskipper, Oct 16 2007

"The Naif's Guide to Eastern Montmartre," Gridskipper, Oct 1 2007

"Paris for Apple Geeks," Gridskipper, Sept 24 2007

"Southwestern French Cuisine in Paris," Gridskipper, Sept 17 2007

"Fall Gallery Openings in Paris", Gridskipper, Sept 7 2007

"Rue des Martyrs Shopping Spree," Gridskipper, Aug 31 2007

"A Guide to Literary Paris," Gridskipper, Aug 22 2007

"Eat Your Way Through the Butte-aux-Cailles," Gridskipper, Aug 20 2007

"La Dolce Vita in Paris", Gridskipper, Aug 8 2007

"Paris in the Movies," Gridskipper, Aug 2 2007

"The Scene" (Paris Theatre Update), Parisist, Jan 24 2007

"Venice in Paris," Parisist.com, Jan 17 2007

"Artazart: Paris's Design-y Bookstore," Gridskipper, Aug 24 2007

"Tea and Tattered Pages," Paris Kiosque, September 2002

"Fluency by CD," Paris Kiosque, June 2002

venice

"Veni, Vidi, Venice," Gridskipper, Sept 29 2006

on books


"A Guide to Literary Paris," Gridskipper, Aug 22 2007

"Resistance Fighter" (Interview with Tatiana de Rosnay) Nextbook, Aug 7 2007

"Paris littéraire: the get-out-of-the-house edition," Parisist, Mar 12 2007

"The Devil Wears Poofs" (Review of Queen of Fashion: What Maris Antoinette Wore to the French Revolution), Parisist, Feb 21 2007

"Artazart: Paris's Design-y Bookstore," Gridskipper, Aug 24 2006

"The Apothecary's House" Review, Paris Voice, Sept 2005

"Anglo Readers Seduced by French Touch," Paris Voice, June 2005

Interview with Joann Sfar, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 12 2005

misc.

life in France

"Through a mirror, bizarrely," The Huffington Post, June 26 2007 (on teaching in a French university)

"In Paris, you're only as good as your dossier," The Huffington Post, June 6 2007  (on real estate in Paris)

music

"Battle of the Faux French Bands," Parisist, Mar 2 2007

"Rufus and Judy and Me, Oh My!" (Music Review), Parisist, Feb 22 2007

"Nous aimons Nous Non Plus" (Music Review), Parisist, Feb 7 2007

blogging

"Blogging and (Expatriate) Identity," Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture, 6.4 (2006)

jewish france (highlights)

"English, French, Hebrew spoken at inclusive Paris Shul," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sept 26 2005

"Debate rages over Le Monde Verdict," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 7 2005

"French Jews Conflicted on Constitution," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 27 2005

Interview with Joann Sfar, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 12 2005

BlogHer Ads

  • BlogHer Ad Network
    More from BlogHer
    Advertise here
    BlogHer Privacy Policy

Maîtresse in the press

The Book Nook

Honored

Tender Buttons

I wrote it, not you

  • All of the text and most of the photographs on this blog are the exclusive property of Lauren Elkin, (c) 2004-2008.
  • Creative Commons License
    Ce/tte création est mis/e à disposition sous un contrat Creative Commons.

Coin poésie

  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
  • How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
  • I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
  • My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
  • For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
  • I love thee to the level of everyday's
  • Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
  • I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
  • I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
  • I love thee with the passion put to use
  • In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
  • I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
  • With my lost saints--I love thee with the breadth,
  • Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
  • I shall but love thee better after death.
  • (1850)

Coins poésie du passé

  • Marilyn Hacker, "April Couplets"
  • Mild Sky of a day which may or may not be forgotten
  • as days of a life, lives themselves, are forgotten.
  • Tenacious ivy crawls from a plastic pot in
  • a window-box which the early rain's forgotten
  • Nocturnal narrative's coherent plot in
  • the sleeper's mind disconnects, and the dream's forgotten
  • textures, flavors, burlap, honey, satin
  • systematically derange, dissolve: forgotten
  • This morning's crisp half-loaf in which I've bitten
  • a crescent lies near coffee dregs, forgotten.
  • On a lined page in front of me are written
  • haphazard words grasping what I've forgotten
  • A letter will be answered today or not. In
  • the gap, what it might have said could be forgotten.
  • A three year-old picked up w dropped red button
  • and cried for a lost rag doll not quite forgotten.
  • The sidewalk glistened in the Marais, Manhattan
  • or a Balkan town whose vowels howl unforgotten
  • chronicles of neighbors at war, ill met in
  • each market-place, blood mixed, but no slur forgotten
  • What key turns in the lock, who will be let in
  • to the bright room of what is not forgotten?
  • The scribe turns hacker: DOS displaces Latin:
  • Exiles hoard both, the plain speech of peace forgotten
  • William Carlos Williams, "Danse Russe"
  • If I when my wife is sleeping
  • and the baby and Kathleen
  • are sleeping
  • and the sun is a flame-white disc
  • in silken mists
  • above shining trees,--
  • if I in my north room
  • dance naked, grotesquely
  • before my mirror
  • waving my shirt round my head
  • and singing softly to myself:
  • "I am lonely, lonely.
  • I was born to be lonely,
  • I am best so!"
  • If I admire my arms, my face,
  • my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
  • again the yellow drawn shades,--
  • Who shall say I am not
  • the happy genius of my household?
  • [c. 1917]