Nobody Sits Like the French: Exploring Paris Through It’s Word Expos – review

Part travel guide, part history of Paris and France and totally brilliant – Nobody Sits Like the French is one of those books you find you just can’t put down. It’s a quirky title and the first chapter takes you straight into how it got there, with a deep dive of Paris – via its iconic bistro chairs.

Author Charles Pappas explores France and French history through the famous Paris Expos and Fairs from 1855 to 1937. These monumental showcases for French (and foreign) savoir-faire and inventions had an extraordinary effect on life – not just in France but in the world, and their legacy is still felt to this day. Thousands of exhibitors had stand space and millions attended these grand fairs. So popular were these events that Pappas tells us that at the 1900 World Expo there were 56 ticket offices that processed 60,000 people an hour. Visitors came from all over the world and what they saw had a profound effect – audiences who were hungry for new, beautiful, and delicious things, and they wanted more of them even when the fair was over.

The Eiffel Tower was an Paris Expo monument – 1889. Champagne really hit its stride in the fair of that year too after what Pappas calls “a dry run” at the 1878 Exposition Universelle at which crowds were impressed by a monumental barrel capable of holding 120,000 bottles of sparkling wine, yes really, 120,000 bottles – and sparkling wine because it was only in 1882 that some of the French champagne houses got together to create a collective and took on the goal of protecting the name Champagne for their sparkling wine. And the bistro chair owes its long-lasting fame to the Paris Expo of 1867.

Nobody Sits Like the French: Exploring Paris Through It’s Word Expos

Pappas reveals that the bistro chair, made of wood and cane was designed by a German cabinet maker named Michael Thonet, and won a gold medal at the 1867 fair – causing its fame to spread. Thonet’s patent expired in 1869 and the chair’s design – taken up by French producers, was transformed into a French cultural style icon. It went on to become the world’s first mass produced furniture item, with more than 50 million sold by 1930. And a few of the early manufacturers of these oh so French chairs you see in almost every café in France still exist! As Pappas says, “Nobody sits like the French.”

The book is full of ‘did you know” moments – the sort that makes you turn to whoever is in hearing distance to ask “Wow, did you know that…?“ I had no idea that artists also used these fairs to become famous and make fortunes from Rodin to Manet. Metro lines were built to carry passengers to the fairs. And I had no idea just how far reaching the legacy of these fairs has been and that there is much to see in Paris and around that is a reminder of those heady days.

Pappas takes some of the most legendary exhibits, buildings and products and explains their history and their contribution to history. It’s a truly fascinating, and very witty read, like your clever friend telling you all the secrets of Paris that no one else does. Reading this made me laugh out loud on occasion, say “wow” more than any other book I think I have ever read, and is so chock-a-block with amazing facts and anecdotes that as soon as I finished it, I put it on the “pile of books to read” – again.

I’ll never sit at a Paris café on a bistro chair in quite the same way now that I know just how extraordinary a story is behind them!

Available on Amazon and all good bookstores, published by Lusterpublishing.com