I am much too obsessed with Paris for my own good, especially considering that I’ve never been there. I’m enamored of the idea of it, so when I do eventually go (and, by God, I will), there is a decent chance that I will be hideously disappointed. With that in mind, I’m significantly less interested in purchasing tickets to Paris than I am in purchasing photography books that portray it as idealistically as I do in my head. Why go all the way there just to be let down when I can sit right here and just pretend that I’m there and it’s awesome? Paris, Portrait of a City, “the true family album of all Parisians,” is just the glossy 544-page photo book I need to sustain my delusions, and with its chronological layout spanning photographers from Daguerre to Cartier-Bresson, it’s a solid lesson in European history, too. We’ll always have Paris, after all. [$69.99, Taschen]
