MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewFor today’s real estate-obsessed, much of Anne De Courcy’s retelling of the characters, events and properties of the French Riviera in the 1930s reads like a Sotheby’s International catalog punctuated with Page Six-style rundowns of who’s sleeping with whom and banal descriptions of what F. Scott Fitzgerald famously described as \'the diffused magic of the hot, sweet South\' ... Although sketches of Chanel’s life, specifically her fashion inventions and her love affairs, are woven throughout the book, she is not the only icon whose habits are chronicled in meticulous detail (making it slightly odd that her name is featured so prominently in the title) ... intoxicating descriptions ... The second half of the book describes in equally meticulous — and gruesome — detail the deportations and persecution of Jews, and the struggle of many along the Côte d’Azur, including Chanel’s architect, to hide Allied prisoners and detention camp escapees in their villas, and then to help them find other safe houses or couriers. That’s the problem with this meandering, occasionally repetitive account: The awkward juxtaposition of the Riviera’s high-society decadence and the gruesome atrocities of the war is difficult to reconcile.
Ruth Reichl
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewWe know the ending to this foodie fairy tale, but it’s still fun to read Save Me the Plums, Reichl’s poignant and hilarious account of what it took to bring the dusty food bible back to life with artistic and literary flair through the glory days of magazine-making ... Reichl peels away the layers of drama that arrive with her new job. (Caution: Former editors might experience indigestion while reveling in Reichl’s rich servings of publishing world intrigue.) ... Working mothers will sympathize with Reichl’s descriptions of the exhausting rhythms of a \'dream job\' ... Tantalizing recipes provide punctuation to the career twists and turns ... each serving of magazine folklore is worth savoring. In fact, Reichl’s story is juicier than a Peter Luger porterhouse. Dig in.
Elaine Sciolino
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewSciolino doesn’t lack for inspiration; she has Paris at her feet. Her facts are intriguing and skillfully woven together, but perhaps in their tight weave the author misses a looser, sensory feeling of Paris, a city defined as much by its superficial smells and sounds and visual dichotomies as it is by its deep and often dark history.
