Oliver Gee

Unlike many other reviewers of this book, I had not heard of Oliver Gee before being introduced to him by Carol Gillott, blogger and artist of Paris Breakfasts http://parisbreakfasts.blogspot.com/ (Which I highly recommend subscribing to if you want to visit Paris on a weekly basis). As a reader and not a podcast listener, I was eager to read Oliver’s memoir of surviving and thriving in Paris. It is an honest and entertaining account of how he “became” a Parisian. In addition, he describes the process of how he invented a job for himself as a podcaster of The Earful Tower https://theearfultower.com/ and against the odds has become a self-supporting and authentic resident of the City of Light.

Oliver says it best as he offers a summary of his experiences as a native Australian, first living in Sweden, and then moving to Paris as a journalist. “I hardly recognized myself compared to the man I was when I arrived. Then, I was too timid to speak French, to meet new people, to walk into restaurants. I didn’t feel like I belonged and resigned myself to life as a curious observer on the sidelines. I knew no one, had no regular haunts in the city, and couldn’t have pointed you in the right direction if I tried. Where once I was nervous to walk onto the basketball court, I now counted some of those mecs among my closest friends. I’d made Paris my home. I’d explored it so thoroughly that French friends asked me to take them on walking tours.”

I’ve read several books and guides about Paris and France. Some purely entertaining, some predictable, and some I’ve made notes in and underlined for my next trip. Paris on Air includes a few streets and info I will research in more detail online. But I found it to be mostly enjoyable for Oliver’s entertaining anecdotes about apartment hunting, shopping, and even traveling through France on his little red scooter. There is also the story of his wedding. This isn’t the guidebook to read on your flight over, but it provides humor and enlightenment about a foreigner learning to make his way in Paris.… (más)