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The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris
The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris
The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris
Audiobook8 hours

The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris

Written by Tilar J. Mazzeo

Narrated by Elizabeth Wiley

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of World War II, The Hôtel on Place Vendôme is the captivating history of Paris's world-famous Hôtel Ritz-a breathtaking tale of glamour, opulence, and celebrity; dangerous liaisons, espionage, and resistance.

When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, the legendary Hôtel Ritz on the Place Vendôme-an icon of Paris frequented by film stars and celebrity writers, American heiresses and risque flappers, playboys, and princes-was the only luxury hotel of its kind allowed in the occupied city by order of Adolf Hitler.

Tilar J. Mazzeo traces the history of this cultural landmark from its opening in fin de siecle Paris. At its center, The Hotel on Place Vendôme is an extraordinary chronicle of life at the Ritz during wartime, when the Hôtel was simultaneously headquarters to the highest-ranking German officers, such as Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, and home to exclusive patrons, including Coco Chanel. Mazzeo takes us into the grand palace's suites, bars, dining rooms, and wine cellars, revealing a hotbed of illicit affairs and deadly intrigue, as well as stunning acts of defiance and treachery.

Rich in detail, The Hotel on Place Vendôme is a remarkable look at this extraordinary crucible where the future of post-war France-and all of post-war Europe-was transformed.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 4, 2015
ISBN9781494585549
Author

Tilar J. Mazzeo

Tilar J. Mazzeo is the author of numerous works of cultural history and biography, including the New York Times bestselling The Widow Clicquot, The Secret of Chanel No. 5, and nearly two dozen other books, articles, essays, and reviews on wine, travel, and the history of luxury. The Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College, she divides her time between coastal Maine, New York City, and Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

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Reviews for The Hotel on Place Vendome

Rating: 3.8541666944444444 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Really interesting on history of an iconic hotel. Loved it
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The person who said the author got details wrong (Hemingway’s place of death, for instance, which the author said was in Idaho) must not have read the book or doesn’t know much themselves. Great read of a fascinating piece of history.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What good is knowledge if you can't do anything with it? Statements like we only use ten percent of our brain capacity are frustrating because they don't offer a solution for accessing the other ninety percent. Basically, what they amount to is like hearing: your brain function is roughly equivalent to that of the Geico caveman. You might as well make peace with the stultifying universe of mediocrity and ennui you're doomed to inhabit.Then along comes a book like David Rock's Your Brain at Work and the neurons start firing all over the place. The synapses start connecting so rapidly that my shriveled cerebrum can hardly keep pace. Answers, at long last! It's like a Christmas miracle. All over again.In clear, concise language Rock explains the physiology behind our lack of focus, constant frustration and befuddlement at missed cues, lost opportunities and the sense of feeling overwhelmed. Or as an old lady shuffling down the soup aisle in my local grocery store called it, "a brain fart". Couldn't have said it better myself.And yet. Rock offers hope in the form of lucid metaphors that expose our "stinkin thinkin" for what it really is. His central premise is that all the brain's a stage and all the thoughts merely players. It's up to us to get the most important players on stage at any given time. And keep the least helpful players off or on for the shortest amount of time. Once the brain latches onto an unhelpful thought, it quickly spirals down into more unhelpful thoughts until we're caught in a quagmire of our own making. Rock offers a plethora of friendly suggestions:...become aware of your own mental energy needs and schedule accordingly. Experiment with different timings. One technique is to break work up into blocks of time based on type of brain use, rather than topic. (p. 15)When you sense a strong emotion coming on, refocus...quickly...before the emotion takes over. (p. 118).Playing against yourself to improve your understanding of your own brain can be a powerful way of increasing your performance (p. 200)Chapters are structured with dual scenarios; what happens when you're on autopilot (translation: using the same old ten percent) vs what happens when you understand how the brain works and capitalize on that. Each chapter ends with (a summary) "Surprises About the Brain" and "Some Things to Try".I've been trying them. Rock's strategies work. With continued practice the other ninety percent of my brain might kick in more frequently, increasing my chances of completing all those unfinished projects. Hold on world, here I come.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    David Rock has written an entertaining book with immediately practical application for one's working and non-working relationships. He has synthesized much of the latest neuroscience, applying it, in particular and in a heretofore unique way to improving one's use of one's brain/mind, in working situations. That the eminent neuroscientist and mightsight expert, Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., wrote the Forward for the book is further testimony to the quality of David Rock's synthesis and application of the concepts.Mindfulness is a key concept of the book - using one's "director" to observe one's mental processes and that the neuroscience explains how this works to improve ones mental functioning while at work.I was, at first, concerned when I read that David Rock had structured the book like a "play" with"acts", thinking that such a construct would only distract and/or add "filler" to the concepts. However, I found that after reading only a few pages, I immediately liked his use of the play, because he did this so well. Furthermore, as David Rock points out (and I believe Daniel Siegel would agree) the brain "likes" stories, which help integration in the mind/brain.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When I first bought this book (based on reviews by BL friends) I couldn't wait to get started on it, but RL was busy at the time. In my excitement, I showed it to my mother-in-law, who promptly borrowed it. She returned it quickly, but the buzz had worn off and the book languished in my TBR for a couple of years. I picked it up this week and happened to read the "other works" list in the front and saw that Mazzeo also wrote The Widow Clicquot, a book I started reading a couple of years ago and put back down because the florid writing was killing me. I almost put this book back in the pile after seeing that, but fortunately, I didn't. Someone mentioned in their review that this narrative history read like a soap opera; I could definitely see some of that in a few of the chapters, but mostly what I got out of the book was that even amongst the very, very rich there were those that just wanted to get through it with little notice or involvement (Jean Cocteau), those that used the occupation to further their own ends (Coco Chanel), those that treated it as a game (Hemingway) and those who felt they were above it all (Arletty). Interspersed among the glitterati were those that were quietly fighting the good fight under everyone's noses. But what struck me as slightly hyperbolic before I read the book, became clear by the end: an astounding amount of history originated or passed through the Hotel Ritz during World War II. Mazzeo writes an engrossing narrative describing the highlights (and low) in a structure that mostly makes sense and is easy to follow; a few times her backtracking left me flipping back pages to get back on the timeline, but overall it was a very easy, interesting and absorbing read. This book certainly gave me an education: Hemingway's competitiveness, Chanel's anti-semitism and was-she/wasn't-she spy status, Edward and Wallis' fascism. But one story was the best: the story of Lieutenant Alexandre Rosenberg. I won't spoil it here, but wow... against astronomic odds... So. very. awesome. I dinged it 1/2 star because there were some egregious copyediting errors, including one phrase repeated within a sentence. Lots of missing articles, and a few instances of excessive use of a single word in a paragraph or sentence. Really obvious stuff that should have been caught. The author also hints at further developments to be revealed later in the narrative but then never reveals them. (Mazzeo foreshadows that Laura Mae Corrigan faces trouble at the end of the war, after winning two medals for service, but then never mentions her again.) Overall though, an excellent read; really interesting and one I'd not hesitate to recommend to someone interested in narrative histories.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mazzeo tells an interesting story with emphasis on the years around World War II. It seemed to me that she still had a lot of material left at the end and just appended it, and didn't really edit that material. Just a couple Google searches would have improved the book. She talks about Barbara Hutton, as the Woolworth 'drugstore' heiress. She was a Woolworth heiress, but Woolworth's was a five and dime. Was she thinking Walgreen's? She also states that Ernest Hemingway committed suicide in Key West. It was in Idaho. There was also some confusion about military ranks. On one page an individual is a Lieutenant Colonel, and then a few pages later he has been demoted to Lieutenant. Little editing things like these throw the whole story into question. It's a good story with lots of interesting characters, but if I had caught similar lapses of fact checking earlier in the book, I would have put it down as poorly written and edited popular history.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is an interesting topic treated as a mix of history and gossip. The author refers to some of the people by their first names only and others by their surnames only. Often this happens in the same paragraph. I found the coy chapter about "Marcel" and the Dreyfus Affair particular annoying. Throughout the chapter we are given "Marcel's" story as if there was some mystery about which "Marcel" we are reading. I have little knowledge of French history but it didn't take me long to figure it out. Then at the end of the chapter we get the big revelation. Duh!This event was described early in the book and it probably made me more critical of the history/gossip presentation. I suppose this is done to make history more dramatic and palatable to the non-historian but this attempt made an interesting subject less instead of more interesting.I read a copy from my local library.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This entertaining history of the Paris Hôtel Ritz is told through stories of the many people who lived, worked, loved, drank, argued, and partied there, starting in La Belle Époque with hotel’s 1898 opening while the Dreyfus affair was polarizing French aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals. Soon the then unknown Marcel Proust became one of the regulars, gathering inspiration from the hotel’s patrons and staff for what would become his literary opus. The Ritz was a new style of luxury hotel but Oscar Wilde hated it because he found it all so very modern and jarring. The elevators were too fast, the electric lights too bright, and Wilde much preferred calling for a removable basin to having indoor plumbing with a permanent sink in his suite. Though the book’s tales continue even past the time Princess Diana slipped out of one of the hotel’s back doors hoping to avoid the paparazzi shortly before their pursuit helped cause her death, the book’s focus is on life in the WWII era with all its bizarre contradictions and complications during the Nazi occupation and then liberation of Paris. Joseph Goebbels gave the order that Paris should be happy and gay--or else--so parties were held, plays were produced and love affairs were conducted even as some citizens were disappearing off the streets never to be seen again and the French Underground was working covertly to oust the invaders. Aristocrats, philosophers, journalists, artists, authors, spies, German commanders, and members of the French Resistance all mingled at the Ritz which gives this book plenty of sometimes shocking anecdotes, all delivered in a chatty style but backed up by pages of reference notes. Hemingway who planned to liberate the Ritz without the help of the military, Coco Chanel who had a German lover, and Sartre, Cocteau, Wallis Simpson, and Hermann Wilhelm Göring are among the many notables who make appearances in this book. With just 238 pages of text this is a fast, fascinating read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There's a reason they sing songs about the Ritz. It was a fabulous hotel to meet, greet, and eat in the city of lights, Paris. From it's inception, just before the turn of the twentieth century, it was de rigueur for the rich and famous to party, make love, and plan the future of Europe from inside it's lavishly decorated walls. In the 1920's and 30's it was the home for the Lost Generation of writers artists and expatriates. Before and during World War II, it was still the place to be seen for which ever side was currently occupying Paris. German officers including, Reichsmarshal Hermann Goring, flocked to it like bees to honey. They rubbed elbows with film stars, cabaret performers, politicians, the aristocracy, and the filthy rich of Europe. It was also a great gathering spot for spies and double agents from both sides in the war. They could be hidden among the guests, both military and civilian, as well as the staff, who might work for either side. The stories of the people who led these lives are extremely interesting. Most are fraught with danger and suspense. Some are sprinkled with humor. Many are appalling in the revelation of acts of cruelty and inhumanity that were suffered by so many. It is revealing of the injustices of this world, that some can be so cruel to others, yet escape judgement. A mesmerizing true story. Book provided for review by Amazon Vine.