Nonfiction / Travel guide / History

240 pages

Published April 2025 in the UK
Luster Publishing

August 12, 2025 in the US
Pre-order here.

Check the book on Goodreads

Paris is the physical memory of seven World Expos that took place in the city from 1855 to 1937. These Expos left behind monuments like the Eiffel Tower, the Musée d’Orsay, the Grand and Petit Palais…
But many traces are more subtle: your suitcase today is an evolution of the trunk Louis Vuitton won a gold medal with at Paris’ Exposition Universelle in 1867, and the typical Parisian bistro chairs were designed during those years when a multitude of cafés and restaurants flourished because of the Expos, including icons like Le Procope.

A cocktail of travel guide and history book, Nobody Sits Like the French tells these stories and many more, pointing out the marks the Expos left behind. From now on, you’ll know that every time you sip a glass of burgundy, drink from Baccarat crystal, admire a Manet or a Gauguin, and even enjoy the benefits of a working sewer system in Paris, you owe it to a World Expo there.

Check the publisher’s page for an excerpt of the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Pappas
is a senior writer at Exhibitor magazine,
where for the last 20 years he has explored the unique history of exhibiting.
His book Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords
shows how, when the world wants to see what the future will bring,
it looks to world expos and trade shows.

Pappas is also the author of It’s a Bitter Little World,
a collection of the most go-for-the-jugular quotes from film noir.
If you want to know the meaning of life, don’t study Shakespeare, don’t peruse Plato.
Everything you need to know in life you can learn from film noir.

His articles have won several national/regional ASBPE, MAGGIE and TABBI awards.

Check his website, especially his latest article on La Bastille, perfect for today, July 14!

Follow him on LinkedIn and on Instagram.
His specialties:
Trade shows, trade show history, and world’s fairs.
He also consults and speaks regularly on trade shows and world expos
as tipping points for all social trends, technologies, and products.

Review copies may be available.
Contact the publisher directly.

Secret Paris

by

Thomas Jonglez

Travel guide

Release date: May 2024
at Jonglez Publishing

ISBN: 978-2-36195-765-0
195 pages

Winemaking firefighters, a tree in a church, an inverted phallus at a well-known entrance,
an atomic bomb shelter under Gare de l’Est, unsuspected traces of former brothels,
the patron saint of motorists, royal monograms hidden in the Louvre courtyard,
the presentation of Christ’s crown of thorns, a prehistoric merry-go-round,
a sundial designed by Dalí, war-wounded palm trees, bullet holes at the ministry,
religious plants in a priest’s garden, a mysterious monument to Freemasonry at the Champ-de-Mars,
a solid gold sphere in parliament, a Chinese temple in a parking lot,
the effect of the Bièvre river on Parisian geography, a blockhouse in the Bois de Boulogne…

For those who thought they knew Paris well, the city is still teeming with unusual and secret places that are easily accessible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Thomas Jonglez was born and grew up in Paris.
At the age of 22 he set out to discover the world,
and spent most of 1992 backpacking around South America.
Next he bought a one-way ticket to Beijing,
from where he decided to make his way back to Paris overland
– a trip that took him seven months.
On his return, he tirelessly trawled the streets of Paris
for material to write his first guidebook, which was published in 1996.
After several years with the steel industry, he launched his publishing company in 2003.
The first edition of Secret Paris came out in 2007.
Ever since, he has regularly strolled around the capital,
constantly surprised to discover new secret places in a city he thought he knew so well.