When it Sizzles

The Romance Pavillion has been at my side for a few weeks now and it has me thinking about....Paris. Everyone knows there is a connection between Paris and love, thus the structure is adorned with Parisian themed gossamer and a glittering miniature Eiffel Tower. But what is that connection? Where did it come from and when did it start?

While on my search for answers, I meandered and found some love-ly detours.

The last time I saw Paris
Her heart was warm and gay
I heard the laughter of her heart in ev'ry
street cafe.
Oscar Hammerstein II, The Last Time I Saw Paris (1941 song)

46 years later in 1987, British author and critic John Berger wrote this in the article,"Imagine Paris" Harper's Magazine.
Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this, hasn't changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.

And in between those years, there was Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast, 1964.
If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

Who can forget the famous line in Casablanca spoken by Rick to Ilsa, "We'll always have Paris." And, of course, Cole Porter's song "I love Paris." The 20th century has clearly embraced the love and Paris connection.

In the early 1800s, Paris was a dark place, literally and figuratively. It was troubled by dissension and crime amidst the salons and cafes. The invention of gas street lighting at the end of that century allowed the physical beauty of the city with its winding streets, curious alleys, the Seine and magnificent monuments to be explored and enjoyed at all hours. Thus, the City of Light moniker was born to represent the physical glow and a new openess of ideas.Alas, Paris and love became a world famous couple.

Meander to the 3rd floor Romance Pavillion and find your detours here at the library.

Casablanca

Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying and Quotation

You're Sensational

Love Comes to the Library

Is that the sweet smell of roses wafting down from the 3rd floor? And who's that fat kid with the arrow? Harbingers of love, my friends. The Des Plaines Public Library is pleased to announce the creation of a separate romance section.

Not only are romance novels extraordinarily popular at our library, their sales account for the largest percentage of all categories of fiction. That's right - bigger than mystery, bigger than science fiction. In fact, romance fiction generated $1.375 billion in sales in 2007.*

Perhaps the reason for their popularity is because the world of the romance novel has grown so wide, it now encompasses mystery and science fiction as well as another genres. In the old days, there were only sweet love stories that Grandma read and "bodice-rippers" that everyone else read but wouldn't admit to. (Actually, I think my Grandma not only read the bodice rippers, I suspect she was secretly writing them.) Today, consider the following subgenres of romance: contemporary, chick lit, historical, paranormal, suspense, inspirational, erotica (now called "romantica"), women's fiction and young adult romance. So you can read a tender, inspirational love story set in the 1800s or you can read a thriller about two vampires who fall in love on Mars. As long as the central plot line is about falling in love and the ending is emotionally-satisfying and optimistic, you are reading romance.

I'll make my own vows to you. I promise to select titles that represent all types of different taste as is consistent with our collection policy and I vow to review one romance title a month in our "Staff Picks". (I've already promised to read Brothers Karamozov in a prior post. Doestoyevsky and romance? It's going to be an very interesting year.)

So get your romance on. We're going to have many events planned for Valentine's Day, Saturday, February 14 - the official launch date. Contests with prizes! Food! Movies! Come up to the floor d'amore and find some passion.