Rapha Europe City Cycling Guides

Supremely talented, cycling-mad mates Max Leonard and Andy Edwards have united their day jobs (writer and graphic designer respectively) with their passion for travelling on two wheels to create this beautiful box set of city cycling guides, in association with every bike enthusiast's favourite brand, Rapha. The nine pocket-sized books each deal with a different European city, detailing the best places to cycle and the best cafés and restaurants in which to refuel (and superlative shops, galleries and museums, too), neighbourhood by neighbourhood, and have all important sections on essential bike info, racing and training, and a suggested day-long itinerary. Paris - the hallowed cycling city in which the holy cycling grail of the Tour de France culminates - is, unsurprisingly, one of the chosen destinations for the guides (and to which Kim, your trusty editor of Unlock Paris, proudly contributed) and so fittingly hosted not only a launch party last week at chic cycling shop En Selle Marcel but also a Rapha-organised bike ride from the Champs-Elysées to Longchamp to celebrate the books landing in store. The box set - a perfect Christmas present idea - is out now for £25/€30.

City Cycling Guide Europe - Rapha (Thames & Hudson). Available to buy online now at the Rapha store.

Book Club at Le Carmen: The Return

Paris' finest high brow debauchery is back: Book Club returns for another evening of fun, frolics and literary chat this Sunday 7th April at South Pigalle cocktail bar, Le Carmen. The concept is simple: bring a book you have loved and swap it with a book one of the other guests has brought and also therefore loved. Strike up conversation, have a couple of expertly-mixed cocktails and even indulge in shaking your tail feather in the decadent setting of Le Carmen, which was formerly home to composer Bizet and after whose famous opera the cocktail bar is named. Leave with a new-to-you book and maybe even a phone number or two - this is a contemporary version of the blue-stockinged antics of yesteryear, after all. Just remember: no book, no entry...

Book Club 

Sunday 7th April from 8pm

Le Carmen

34 rue Duperré, 75009 Paris 

Facebook Event: Book Club at Le Carmen

photos copyright Kim Laidlaw. Steal them and feel her wrath. 

Her Royal Majesty Launches Issue 12

Tonight, international literary and arts journal Her Royal Majesty celebrates the launch of its 12th issue - featuring the first short story ever written by contemporary literary heavyweight Alice Munro - with seven simultaneous parties across the world. As well as events in London, New York and Berlin, a night of literary and art-based revelry will be held in our very own capital Paris, the city in which the magazine is based. The fun will include performances, readings, live music, live painting and a themed photo shoot taken by world-class photographers. Each issue is curated around a particular theme (for number 12 it is the Exotic) and features new work from emerging talent alongside work by more established artists and writers. Her Royal Majesty is a printed edition - a real, tangible object you can hold and treasure and indeed gather round and coo over tonight at the party. And if you don't manage to pick one up tonight, you can also get your copy from Paris' iconic Left Bank bookshop, Shakespeare and Company and the bookshop of contemporary private gallery par excellence, Yvon Lambert.

See you tonight!

Her Royal Majesty Launch of Issue 12 

59 Rivoli

59 rue de Rivoli, 75001

From 6pm-11pm

More info here: Her Royal Majesty Facebook Event 

A Tale of Three Cities Launch Party

This Friday sees the launch of A Tale of Three Cities - a literary journal produced by the guys behind the now legendary Book Club - at the decadent South Pigalle venue of Le Carmen.

The Book Club at Le Carmen

Tonight sees the first in a series of innovative monthly nights, the Book Club, at Paris' bar of the moment Le Carmen. The dress code is simple, all you have to do is bring a book - a book you have enjoyed and that you wish to discuss and then swap with a book brought by, and enjoyed by, one of your fellow guests. The idea is that this will be a literary salon for the 21st century and that attendees will rely on this event for the best in literature, people and conversation. 

Mustachioed dandy David Piper will be your compere for the evening, and Tom Rosenthal will be at the piano, creating songs on demand. 

Don't forget to wear your blue stockings and don't whatever you do bring a copy of Eat, Pray and Love....

The Book Club at Le Carmen, 

 34 Rue Duperré 75009

Wed 23rd Feb, from 8.30pm
Facebook Event: The Book Club at Le Carmen

Mademoiselle London ♥ Paris (sometimes)

Last week two cheeky Londoners in Paris launched their book, Mademoiselle London ♥ Paris (sometimes), a collection of poems and beautiful illustrations detailing the boozy exploits of an English girl finding her way in Paris. 

The book, written in both French and English, doesn't take itself too seriously; its creators, Katya Jezzard-Puyraud and Franki Goodwin, charmingly describe it as "Art and Poetry without the wank".  We read of raucous nights out in Paris that are so vastly different to nights on the tiles in the UK, we see screen after screen of English texts rendered as nonsense due to French predictive text and we are even given bright and breezy grammar tips. But despite its predominantly deadpan tone, it's also a poignant account of how it feels to be lost in Paris. It'd be a good idea to hand them out as standard issue to every English girl coming to live in Paris as they step off the Eurostar...

...but, until that happens,  Mademoiselle London ♥ Paris (sometimes) is available to buy at select Paris bookshops including Shakespeare and Company and The Red Wheelbarrow, or online here www.mademoisellelondon.fr