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Paris: A Love Story
This is a memoir for anyone who has ever fallen in love in Paris, or with Paris. Paris: A Love Story is for anyone who has ever had their heart broken or their life upended.
In this remarkably honest and candid memoir, award-winning journalist and distinguished author Kati Marton narrates an impassioned and romantic story of love, loss, and life after loss. Paris is at the heart of this deeply moving account. At every stage of her life, Paris offers Marton beauty and excitement, and now, after the sudden death of her husband Richard Holbrooke, it offers a chance for a fresh beginning. With intimate and nuanced portraits of Peter Jennings, the man to whom she was married for fifteen years and with whom she had two children, and Richard, with whom she found enduring love, Marton paints a vivid account of an adventuresome life in the stream of history. Inspirational and deeply human, Paris: A Love Story will touch every generation.
In this remarkably honest and candid memoir, award-winning journalist and distinguished author Kati Marton narrates an impassioned and romantic story of love, loss, and life after loss. Paris is at the heart of this deeply moving account. At every stage of her life, Paris offers Marton beauty and excitement, and now, after the sudden death of her husband Richard Holbrooke, it offers a chance for a fresh beginning. With intimate and nuanced portraits of Peter Jennings, the man to whom she was married for fifteen years and with whom she had two children, and Richard, with whom she found enduring love, Marton paints a vivid account of an adventuresome life in the stream of history. Inspirational and deeply human, Paris: A Love Story will touch every generation.
191 pages, Hardcover
First published August 14, 2012
About the author
Kati Marton
19 books171 followersKati Marton is an award-winning former correspondent for NPR and ABC News. She is the author of eight books, the most recent of which is the New York Times-bestselling memoir Paris: A Love Story. Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her other works include The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World, Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History, Wallenberg, A Death in Jerusalem, and a novel, An American Woman. Marton lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 621 reviews
October 10, 2012
I kept thinking this was called Kati: Why Does Anyone Like Me? or Kati: Why Do Men Keep Falling at My Feet? Surrounding her adult life story with the various happy and interesting times spent in Paris was the only thing that kept me reading this book. I truly did enjoy reading about her time as a student at the Sorbonne and the many wonderful French meals she shared with her various lovers/husbands. But it was the uneven sharing of her relationships that turned me off. She was married young to someone she does not name. Then she leaves no stone unturned when it comes to her tempestuous marriage to Peter Jennings. She has an affair with another unnamed man, then name drops the hell out of the entire State Dept. and anyone affiliated with her third husband, Richard Holbrooke. And then there is another affair, while she is married to "her enduring love." I don't know. That's not interesting to me. That's annoying. Kati's life as a child refugee from Budapest, her years as a foreign news correspondent, her career as a writer - that's interesting to me. I wish there had been more about just Kati. Because Kati and her relationships - not so much. I still love Paris!
June 24, 2019
This book was interesting in certain respects. It gave me an insight into the life and culture of people who run with the big dogs. Kati Marton is a writer and journalist who was married for several years to Peter Jennings. She met him as she was an up and coming news reporter. After their divorce, she married Richard Holbrook, an American diplomat.
One would hope that getting a book titled "Paris: a love Story" the story would be largely about, uh, well, Paris for one thing and love for another. This book is about neither. What it is about is one woman's relentless ambition to be a Very Important Person. The entire story is fueled by ego.
We first hear about her last moments with her husband Richard shortly before he dies. She chooses to write this in present tense, perhaps to give it an existentialistic flavor. It worked for Jean-Dominique Bauby in his memoir "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", which he wrote to a scribe by blinking one eye, the only part of his body he could move after a stroke. It does not work for most writers and it does not work for Marton.
They are in Paris, true, and she writes about living in Paris as a young woman studying there after escaping Eastern Europe with her family. She faintly describes her surroundings, some student revolts, but I have been numerous times to Paris. She does not paint Paris; not the Paris I know.
Marton describes her rise in her career where she rather glibly mentions an abortion she had because "it just wasn't the right time"; her career, you know...
She then proceeds to inform everyone of just what a horrible person Peter Jennings was. They had two children (after the first one) and she tried to be a good mother, but Jennings thought she should stay home and raise the children. This seems to be where his horribleness lies, preferring a family life over a career. One wonders what Jennings' feelings were about her abortion since it was also his child.
She could not take the lack of support and after an affair with a man who "understood" her, she finally divorced him. Interestingly Jennings did not want a divorce, even after she confessed her infidelity. Her children begged her to stay with their father. She found that hard to take, but not too hard apparently, because after she met Richard Holbrook who "left Diane Sawyer for her" she divorced Jennings and married Holbrook.
We then get a dissertation on how very, very wonderful Richard Holbrook is and also a list of all the famous politicians and celebrities (mainly democrats) they met at parties (others and their own).
Yet she cheats on Holbrook as well. She feels terrible about it but it was like in the movies. She met a drop dead gorgeous man from Hungary, her home country, and, well, one thing led to another. I'm surprised she didn't write that "it was like it was happening to someone else", a popular movie line.
But you know how wonderful Holbrook is. He did not care and did not even want to know the name of the man and he never asked her any questions about the episode. Ever.
Methinks, Ms. Marton is keeping something from the readers,or maybe Holbrook was keeping something from Ms. Marton.
Other than what restaurants they ate at in Paris (and the aforementioned celebrities) we never learn much about who Holbrook was as a man, aside from the subjective terminology that tells us how loving and supportive he is.
In the end we learn very little about the men in Marton's life, her family, her friends are non-existent, unless you count the parties with famous people, but we learn nothing about them either (well, Hillary was a great gal. She cried when she hugged Marton at Holbrook's funeral.).
The people in this book are as thin as its pages. Marton, narcissistic personality aside, is the thinnest of them all.
Now, narcissism does not prevent a book from being good. After all, look at Joan Didion's books about the deaths of her daughter (Blue Nights) and her husband (The Year of Magical Thinking). Didion's writing is extremely self-centered, but it is also poetic, which makes it worth reading even if it is all about herself disguised as grief for her family.
Marton's writing is surprisingly wooden. For someone who has made her living as a journalist, she does not write with much color or flow. Every sentence dead ends and the reader must mentally pick up each successive sentence. It gets tiring. And boring.
Well, the reader of my review will pick up that I did not really care for this book, but that doesn't mean you should not read it. Especially if you want a career in the media. It will help you realize just how aggressively egotistical you need to be.
One would hope that getting a book titled "Paris: a love Story" the story would be largely about, uh, well, Paris for one thing and love for another. This book is about neither. What it is about is one woman's relentless ambition to be a Very Important Person. The entire story is fueled by ego.
We first hear about her last moments with her husband Richard shortly before he dies. She chooses to write this in present tense, perhaps to give it an existentialistic flavor. It worked for Jean-Dominique Bauby in his memoir "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", which he wrote to a scribe by blinking one eye, the only part of his body he could move after a stroke. It does not work for most writers and it does not work for Marton.
They are in Paris, true, and she writes about living in Paris as a young woman studying there after escaping Eastern Europe with her family. She faintly describes her surroundings, some student revolts, but I have been numerous times to Paris. She does not paint Paris; not the Paris I know.
Marton describes her rise in her career where she rather glibly mentions an abortion she had because "it just wasn't the right time"; her career, you know...
She then proceeds to inform everyone of just what a horrible person Peter Jennings was. They had two children (after the first one) and she tried to be a good mother, but Jennings thought she should stay home and raise the children. This seems to be where his horribleness lies, preferring a family life over a career. One wonders what Jennings' feelings were about her abortion since it was also his child.
She could not take the lack of support and after an affair with a man who "understood" her, she finally divorced him. Interestingly Jennings did not want a divorce, even after she confessed her infidelity. Her children begged her to stay with their father. She found that hard to take, but not too hard apparently, because after she met Richard Holbrook who "left Diane Sawyer for her" she divorced Jennings and married Holbrook.
We then get a dissertation on how very, very wonderful Richard Holbrook is and also a list of all the famous politicians and celebrities (mainly democrats) they met at parties (others and their own).
Yet she cheats on Holbrook as well. She feels terrible about it but it was like in the movies. She met a drop dead gorgeous man from Hungary, her home country, and, well, one thing led to another. I'm surprised she didn't write that "it was like it was happening to someone else", a popular movie line.
But you know how wonderful Holbrook is. He did not care and did not even want to know the name of the man and he never asked her any questions about the episode. Ever.
Methinks, Ms. Marton is keeping something from the readers,or maybe Holbrook was keeping something from Ms. Marton.
Other than what restaurants they ate at in Paris (and the aforementioned celebrities) we never learn much about who Holbrook was as a man, aside from the subjective terminology that tells us how loving and supportive he is.
In the end we learn very little about the men in Marton's life, her family, her friends are non-existent, unless you count the parties with famous people, but we learn nothing about them either (well, Hillary was a great gal. She cried when she hugged Marton at Holbrook's funeral.).
The people in this book are as thin as its pages. Marton, narcissistic personality aside, is the thinnest of them all.
Now, narcissism does not prevent a book from being good. After all, look at Joan Didion's books about the deaths of her daughter (Blue Nights) and her husband (The Year of Magical Thinking). Didion's writing is extremely self-centered, but it is also poetic, which makes it worth reading even if it is all about herself disguised as grief for her family.
Marton's writing is surprisingly wooden. For someone who has made her living as a journalist, she does not write with much color or flow. Every sentence dead ends and the reader must mentally pick up each successive sentence. It gets tiring. And boring.
Well, the reader of my review will pick up that I did not really care for this book, but that doesn't mean you should not read it. Especially if you want a career in the media. It will help you realize just how aggressively egotistical you need to be.
September 29, 2019
A person chooses memoirs to read for all types of different reasons. Quite simply, I read this one because I am a lover of Paris. I have only visited it once in my life and I think of it often. It's just one of those places that enters the bloodstream and never lets go.
For Kati Marton, a Hungarian-American journalist, Paris is where she found love with husbands Peter Jennings and Richard Halbrooke. It would also be the place where she would be able to really grieve her loss of Richard. Based on journals and letters of Marton and her family, it's very much a personal account. I would have to say that the beginning was a lot better than the book as it continued. I guess I read it because I had bought it at a secondhand store and I hate just DNFing.
Goodreads review published 29/08/19
For Kati Marton, a Hungarian-American journalist, Paris is where she found love with husbands Peter Jennings and Richard Halbrooke. It would also be the place where she would be able to really grieve her loss of Richard. Based on journals and letters of Marton and her family, it's very much a personal account. I would have to say that the beginning was a lot better than the book as it continued. I guess I read it because I had bought it at a secondhand store and I hate just DNFing.
Goodreads review published 29/08/19
August 25, 2012
Kati Marton is as interesting a writer as she is a person, and this exceptionally frank and revealing memoir captures both aspects of her being. She begins with the last days of Richard Holbrooke, then traces through the highs and lows of her two marriages, to Holbrooke and, before that, to Peter Jennings. This is a woman who was married to two exceptional men, who had a brilliant journalistic career of her own, and who has become an exceptional writer, beginning with her poignant and dramatic book about Raoul Wallenberg set in her native Budapest.
Marton's story is full of the A-list people and places she has known and experienced. It's a great read, emotional, full of recent history seen from a perspective most of us never experience, a case study of two-career marriages, and a love peon to Paris. It's to Paris that Marton returns after Holbrooke's death, where she is living alone, grieving and still growing. A remarkable woman.
A personal note ... Years ago, I was on the Board of Directors of the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center, an affiliate of Rockefeller University in Manhattan. Richard Holbrooke was active and effective in focusing the world's attention on the devastation AIDS was bringing to Africa. He was the speaker one night at a gala dinner at Rockefeller. While Ambassador Holbrooke was of course at the head table, I was surprised and honored to be seated next to Kati Marton. She was a gracious and fascinating dinner companion.
Marton's story is full of the A-list people and places she has known and experienced. It's a great read, emotional, full of recent history seen from a perspective most of us never experience, a case study of two-career marriages, and a love peon to Paris. It's to Paris that Marton returns after Holbrooke's death, where she is living alone, grieving and still growing. A remarkable woman.
A personal note ... Years ago, I was on the Board of Directors of the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center, an affiliate of Rockefeller University in Manhattan. Richard Holbrooke was active and effective in focusing the world's attention on the devastation AIDS was bringing to Africa. He was the speaker one night at a gala dinner at Rockefeller. While Ambassador Holbrooke was of course at the head table, I was surprised and honored to be seated next to Kati Marton. She was a gracious and fascinating dinner companion.
December 29, 2012
I wanted to like this book, I really did. The title, the jacket blurbs, even the cover photo led me to believe it was just the book to read right now. Sadly, after struggling through the first half, I had to force myself to finish just to make sure I had not missed the point somehow. Yes, Marton is a lovely and accomplished writer- her descriptions are often lyrical and her love for Paris, her children and both Peter Jennings & Richard Holbrooke is often palpable. She has led an amazingly blessed life and makes no secret of her gratitude for those blessings. However, and I hesitate to say this given all of the glowing reviews, the naming of the famous and powerful people in her life grew tiresome almost immediately and became irritating the more I read. Yes, it was an honest and revealing memoir and as a memoir, I would expect to read of people she has encountered throughout her life. However, without that litany of names it would have perhaps felt more genuine to me, less marketable perhaps, but more authentic.
July 5, 2013
I'm so disappointed. I waited for this book for weeks and I was so happy when it came in to the library.
I was expecting a well-written and loving account of life in Paris. What did I get? It's a very slight, self-absorbed account of a woman who comes off as smug and superficial. She was a foreign correspondent in interesting times, she was married to two fascinating and very different men, she travelled the world. None of that really shines through. The book is disjointed and seems like she tosses in anecdotes as they occur to her. There's no soul to the story. The only saving grace is that she occasionally gives us a glimpse of Paris and I could tell from these that she loved it. I just wish she had loved herself a tiny bit less.
I was expecting a well-written and loving account of life in Paris. What did I get? It's a very slight, self-absorbed account of a woman who comes off as smug and superficial. She was a foreign correspondent in interesting times, she was married to two fascinating and very different men, she travelled the world. None of that really shines through. The book is disjointed and seems like she tosses in anecdotes as they occur to her. There's no soul to the story. The only saving grace is that she occasionally gives us a glimpse of Paris and I could tell from these that she loved it. I just wish she had loved herself a tiny bit less.
October 3, 2020
Wow—- I absolutely love how life can be interwoven, at distinct disjointed and non chronological ways.
I read this book because I had gotten the absolute privilege to hit up Paris twice in a year...
Tonight, I watched the Diplomat documentary, and the name Kati kept ringing a bell for me. Yes, indeed, at the end of her story with Jennings, she was the next wife of Ambassador Holbrooke! But now I’m seeing her on my TV, and the whole thing came back fulll circle.
I enjoyed imagining Paris and I very much enjoyed how both journalists found love again. Always there to imbue myself with hope.
I read this book because I had gotten the absolute privilege to hit up Paris twice in a year...
Tonight, I watched the Diplomat documentary, and the name Kati kept ringing a bell for me. Yes, indeed, at the end of her story with Jennings, she was the next wife of Ambassador Holbrooke! But now I’m seeing her on my TV, and the whole thing came back fulll circle.
I enjoyed imagining Paris and I very much enjoyed how both journalists found love again. Always there to imbue myself with hope.
August 15, 2012
I wish I could say I enjoyed this memoir more. Sadly this is not terribly compelling stuff. The book quickly devolves into tedious and superficial recitations of people places and things. More importantly there was very little evidence of introspection. Marton's publisher went to press too soon. Her reputation as a fine journalist and biographer is not well served by this work which reads like an extended article in "O" Magazine. A missed oppportinity.
April 12, 2013
I have mixed feelings about this book so I gave it a fair rating.
The book is very well written. Kati Marton is a famous journalist who knows how to write.
I was expecting a wonderful book about Paris & a love letter to her deceased husband. That wasn't what I found.
I saw Ms. Marton interviewed on a few television shows about this book. She described it as a love letter to her deceased husband and Paris. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to review this book.
I settled down in my quiet bedroom---just me, my dogs & cat and was ready to read until the wee hours of the morning.
The book flows smoothly and is very descriptive. I felt like I was seeing Paris through Ms.Marton's eyes.
Was it a love letter to her deceased husband or Paris? No.
Ms. Marton writes very openly and honestly about her life adventures. The book is about her. She brags about who she knows, what she did and does for a living, she is so brutally honest to tell both husbands about sexual encounters with others while married to them.
That may be honest, but it is mean and hurtful.
Because of the mislabeling and wrong title I gave this book 3 stars.
Reading groups might have fun discussing the people she met, her travels, Paris, divorce, death of a mate and the grieving process.
I doubt I would recommend this book to anyone.
The pictures included were interesting & reminded me that I did remember her from tv long ago, otherwise I would have no idea who Ms. Marton was.
The book is very well written. Kati Marton is a famous journalist who knows how to write.
I was expecting a wonderful book about Paris & a love letter to her deceased husband. That wasn't what I found.
I saw Ms. Marton interviewed on a few television shows about this book. She described it as a love letter to her deceased husband and Paris. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to review this book.
I settled down in my quiet bedroom---just me, my dogs & cat and was ready to read until the wee hours of the morning.
The book flows smoothly and is very descriptive. I felt like I was seeing Paris through Ms.Marton's eyes.
Was it a love letter to her deceased husband or Paris? No.
Ms. Marton writes very openly and honestly about her life adventures. The book is about her. She brags about who she knows, what she did and does for a living, she is so brutally honest to tell both husbands about sexual encounters with others while married to them.
That may be honest, but it is mean and hurtful.
Because of the mislabeling and wrong title I gave this book 3 stars.
Reading groups might have fun discussing the people she met, her travels, Paris, divorce, death of a mate and the grieving process.
I doubt I would recommend this book to anyone.
The pictures included were interesting & reminded me that I did remember her from tv long ago, otherwise I would have no idea who Ms. Marton was.
June 5, 2013
Arg, I don't want to not like this book. I mean who wants to be mean to someone who is processing the loss of her husband and her ex-husband in memoir form? I don't. However this book is not good. First the premise of the story involving Paris, interesting, however that would require more than a 1/3rd of the story to take place in Paris. Kati Marton has had an interesting life. It is too bad that Kati Marton is more interested in name dropping than actually talking about anything of substance.
There are lovely parts of this book (they are just small, few and far between), like when she and Richard Holbrooke were in Africa traveling around war torn countries, meeting women and children with HIV, and Marton was talking to journalists about oppression. Then on the next page, literally, she is bragging about the art collection that they amassed in their apartment in NYC. It almost made me throw the book away in disgust.
If it had not been a quick read and a free book I might not have finished it.
There are lovely parts of this book (they are just small, few and far between), like when she and Richard Holbrooke were in Africa traveling around war torn countries, meeting women and children with HIV, and Marton was talking to journalists about oppression. Then on the next page, literally, she is bragging about the art collection that they amassed in their apartment in NYC. It almost made me throw the book away in disgust.
If it had not been a quick read and a free book I might not have finished it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2013
I enjoyed reading Kati Morton's story of her life at a time of loss, and of love on her journey of life. I recommend first reading her book, Enemies Of The People: My Family's Journey to America. I've always admired Richard Holbrooke & quite liked Peter Jennings but did not know until recently that they've both been married to Kati Morton. Her book is well written & precise. The story of her family is inspiring of strength & resilience & love. I love Paris too & used to live in that city which made it even easier to follow some of the descriptions in this book. It made me want to travel to Paris. Good life lessons.
June 6, 2014
Poorly written and tedious book, devoid of emotion, humor or personality. I only read it through the end because Kati had been with 2 very interesting men, and I wanted to find out what was so special about her to attract these 2 incredibly powerful charismatic men. I found her utterly self absorbed and selfish. She talks about Richard Holbrooke being the great love of her life, and then she goes and cheats on him! What???? The whole book seems to be a puff piece about her great career, fabulous ability to attract me, and love of Paris (although I didn't really get that part).
August 21, 2012
I won this memoir on Goodreads. I entered the drawing based upon the statements made that the book was for anyone who loves Paris, or has fallen in love in Paris. Like other readers I was not familiar with Ms. Marton, but after reading the book, I feel like I SHOULD have known her and should have known her husbands and their fabulous contributions to life as we know it. I will agree that Peter Jennings was a great news man (but apparently not such a great man), and that Richard Holbrooke did make wonderful contributions to peace in the world. BUT I did not enjoy the book due to the constant namedropping and patting of herself on the back. The beginning and the end were very enjoyable, the middle not so much. I would have liked more humanity and feeling, and less I had dinner with Nelson Mandela.
August 16, 2012
I had very little idea who this person was. The title caught my eye, and loving all things Paris I grabbed it. Divorced from Peter Jennings and widow of Richard Holbrooke, this is her memoir. An accomplished reporter and writer in her own right, this details her personal relationships with her lovers, husbands, children, family and chronicles her news and writing careers. What a piece of work this chick is! But I would love to know her. Wouldn't want to be married to her. If you are looking for real introspection you won't find it here. But you will find an interesting telling of life among the best and the brightest. She could never seem to be faithful to anyone, not even her children, for more than 10 years, and blithely recounts her personal history as if she hasn't noticed. Amazing family, elite education, dazzling career, no money worries. Every privilege apparently couldn't make up for having to flee Hungary as a child with her American sympathizing "enemy of the people" parents and siblings. Don't let the cliches get in the way, it's still a well written and fun read.
October 21, 2012
Wow I loved this book. Kati Marton is continuing to live such an interesting life in Hungary, Paris, New York, and all points in between. Among her three marriages were two to fascinating, world-famous figures, news correspondent Peter Jennings and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, she more than held her own by being one of the first women foreign correspondents and then author of over a dozen books.
But I found her tales of love, romance, raising children and eventual widowhood the most compelling parts. I adore her descriptions of Paris in the '60s while she was a student during the riots, to returning over the years for romantic interludes, to eventually living a life of comfortable and relative anonymity more recently.
A great book, both for the escapism, and for the history lessons it gave me.
But I found her tales of love, romance, raising children and eventual widowhood the most compelling parts. I adore her descriptions of Paris in the '60s while she was a student during the riots, to returning over the years for romantic interludes, to eventually living a life of comfortable and relative anonymity more recently.
A great book, both for the escapism, and for the history lessons it gave me.
August 14, 2016
Some keywords: love, death, starting from the bottom, getting to the top, passion and fine skill for writing, taking part in the history of the world, actual, highest class society, humanity, honesty, re-discovering yourself and your roots.
And of course, Paris.
A more elaborated review will follow shortly.
And of course, Paris.
A more elaborated review will follow shortly.
August 15, 2020
A very honest memoir of Kati Marton who was an ABC News foreign correspondent. The autobiography focuses on three main segments of her life; her college years, her marriage to Peter Jennings, and then her marriage to Richard Holbrooke. This was an interesting look at her colorful life which had strong ties to Paris.
February 1, 2024
Read this for a challenge. It was okay, nothing fantastic
December 13, 2015
3.5. Kati Marton is the widow of diplomat Richard Holbrooke. Prior to this memoir, she had been an ABC foreign correspondent and then the author of 7 books. This memoir is based on the journals she kept during the year following her husband's death.
I was drawn to her accounts of Paris the city and how her relationship with it shaped her life. She contrasts her two marriages- her first husband discouraged her career ambitions whereas her second husband loved her for who she was. The city where they are rooted is Paris, thus the love story in this book.
She also touches on her parents' escape from Budapest following the revolution and her return to the city later in life. We find out that her family hid their Jewish identity during the Holocaust only to be imprisoned by the Soviet led regime later on. This personal information is on the surface later while living in Paris wandering the streets and viewing plaques commemorating Holocaust victims.
Marton seems to have lived a full life to this point. She is fortunate to live her later years surrounded by family in the city she loves. I am interested to read her book Enemies of the People about what happened to her family during the Holocaust. I will be reading that soon.
I was drawn to her accounts of Paris the city and how her relationship with it shaped her life. She contrasts her two marriages- her first husband discouraged her career ambitions whereas her second husband loved her for who she was. The city where they are rooted is Paris, thus the love story in this book.
She also touches on her parents' escape from Budapest following the revolution and her return to the city later in life. We find out that her family hid their Jewish identity during the Holocaust only to be imprisoned by the Soviet led regime later on. This personal information is on the surface later while living in Paris wandering the streets and viewing plaques commemorating Holocaust victims.
Marton seems to have lived a full life to this point. She is fortunate to live her later years surrounded by family in the city she loves. I am interested to read her book Enemies of the People about what happened to her family during the Holocaust. I will be reading that soon.
October 13, 2012
This autobiography was a good read. Kati Marton, who fled her homeland, Hungary with her journalist parents, went on to live a globe trotting life as a journalist and author herself. She fell in love with the well known (well, really superstar) journalist, Peter Jennings to whom she was married for 15 years and had two children. When her often tumultuous marriage ended, she was courted by and then married diplomat Richard Holbrooke with whom she spent some of her most satisfying years until his sudden death. With Paris as the touchstone, Marton recounts the highs and lows of both her relationships and her career. In many ways she found her home in Paris for it was in Paris that many of her happiest days were spent with both of her husbands and finally as she finds her way after losing Holbrooke. It was, for me, a peek into a high flying lifestyle that I can only imagine where name recognition and powerfully connected friends were only part of the adventure. Although I wasn't familiar with Marton by name, by the end of her memoir I felt that I knew her...at least enough to be warmed by her story.
November 15, 2013
I was surprisingly swept away by this memoir by Kati Morton. Who would have ever thunk it! I, purposely didn't read the back cover because I wanted it to be a surprise and a surprise it was! I had no idea that I would be reading about a woman who was a foreign correspondent in Bonn Germany, where she met and fell in love with a very famous news anchor (I won't spoil it here, for you) and about her life amongst the powerful and famous in the U.S. and the world. Kati Morton was reporting during the early 70's and 80's and all that that entailed...a very intriguing and interesting read! I am so happy that it turned out to be this wonderful memoir where you are offered a glimpse into someone's life that you would ordinarily never have been privy to. I also learnt a few things about life and love through this woman's journey. I hope that you will too!
December 7, 2012
One woman, two men, three eras, and one magical city: a memoirist's dream! Onto this dazzling but well-trod stage strides the fearless Kati Marton, whose Paris: A Love Story is an exciting and elegant paean to the city that is ever at the heart of her high-pressure life as a successful public woman married to two very successful public men.
"Why did no one tell me that we have love on loan?" an inconsolable Marton cries, early in her memoir, as she mourns the sudden death of her adored second husband, the brilliant and indefatigable Richard Holbrooke, architect of the Dayton Peace Accords (which ended the war in Bosnia), and Obama's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Marton is famous in her own right, of course -- an international human rights activist, an award-winning foreign correspondent for ABC News, and the author of seven acclaimed books. Still, adrift and devastated, she retreats once again to an apartment in her beloved Latin Quarter, where she resolves to reinvent her life.
Thus begins her immersion in memories both intimate and thrilling: her family's flight from Budapest in 1957 and their perilous journey to America, the sudden shocking discovery that her maternal grandparents were Jewish and had been murdered at Auschwitz, her youthful romance with the Latin Quarter where Marton studied at the Sorbonne, fell in love, witnessed the violent and exhilarating student uprisings of May 1968, discovered Montaigne, French cinema, and Parisian chic. She returns in 1978 as ABC's foreign correspondent and bureau chief, but this time to the Right Bank; she meets and marries the famous and dashing Peter Jennings, the father of her two children, and begins a fifteen-year love story, played out against the backdrop of world events, "a roller-coaster ride of passionate reunions and agonizing separations." Torn between her love for Jennings and her ambition to become a great journalist, Marton finally divorces him. Soon afterward, she meets the irrepressible Holbrooke, her great and lasting love. They marry in Budapest in 1995, just before the savage summer of Srebrenica and Holbrooke's posting to Sarajevo. Later, when Holbrooke is appointed Ambassador to the UN, they travel together throughout Asia and Africa where, as Marton puts it, "Richard talks to the torturers, I talk to the tortured." During this dramatic period, they retreat often to Paris, which comforts and renews them both.
It is in the final chapters, however, after Holbrooke's tragic death, that Marton gives us the heart of this moving memoir, an exquisite portrait of the city where "sorrow and pain are deemed part of life." This time, the city is hers alone, a magical place where she "no longer live(s) in a protected world of waiting cars and drivers, fixers, first-class travel, and smiling customs officials" but where, once again on the Left Bank, she rereads Proust, takes hot mint tea in the shaded garden of the Paris mosque, discovers the revelatory Musee Nissim de Camondo, and buys her first pair of dangerously high-heeled raspberry pumps. And it is in the cafes, those "fine places for people alone not to feel lonely," where she is once again able to write.
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"Why did no one tell me that we have love on loan?" an inconsolable Marton cries, early in her memoir, as she mourns the sudden death of her adored second husband, the brilliant and indefatigable Richard Holbrooke, architect of the Dayton Peace Accords (which ended the war in Bosnia), and Obama's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Marton is famous in her own right, of course -- an international human rights activist, an award-winning foreign correspondent for ABC News, and the author of seven acclaimed books. Still, adrift and devastated, she retreats once again to an apartment in her beloved Latin Quarter, where she resolves to reinvent her life.
Thus begins her immersion in memories both intimate and thrilling: her family's flight from Budapest in 1957 and their perilous journey to America, the sudden shocking discovery that her maternal grandparents were Jewish and had been murdered at Auschwitz, her youthful romance with the Latin Quarter where Marton studied at the Sorbonne, fell in love, witnessed the violent and exhilarating student uprisings of May 1968, discovered Montaigne, French cinema, and Parisian chic. She returns in 1978 as ABC's foreign correspondent and bureau chief, but this time to the Right Bank; she meets and marries the famous and dashing Peter Jennings, the father of her two children, and begins a fifteen-year love story, played out against the backdrop of world events, "a roller-coaster ride of passionate reunions and agonizing separations." Torn between her love for Jennings and her ambition to become a great journalist, Marton finally divorces him. Soon afterward, she meets the irrepressible Holbrooke, her great and lasting love. They marry in Budapest in 1995, just before the savage summer of Srebrenica and Holbrooke's posting to Sarajevo. Later, when Holbrooke is appointed Ambassador to the UN, they travel together throughout Asia and Africa where, as Marton puts it, "Richard talks to the torturers, I talk to the tortured." During this dramatic period, they retreat often to Paris, which comforts and renews them both.
It is in the final chapters, however, after Holbrooke's tragic death, that Marton gives us the heart of this moving memoir, an exquisite portrait of the city where "sorrow and pain are deemed part of life." This time, the city is hers alone, a magical place where she "no longer live(s) in a protected world of waiting cars and drivers, fixers, first-class travel, and smiling customs officials" but where, once again on the Left Bank, she rereads Proust, takes hot mint tea in the shaded garden of the Paris mosque, discovers the revelatory Musee Nissim de Camondo, and buys her first pair of dangerously high-heeled raspberry pumps. And it is in the cafes, those "fine places for people alone not to feel lonely," where she is once again able to write.
Head to www.EverydayeBook.com for more eBook reviews
October 13, 2015
Let me just say that I am an absolute sucker for books about Paris-history, memoirs, novels, it doesn't matter. So when I was excited to read this book after finding it at a bookstore. Once I started it, I remember reading an excerpt in an issue of Vogue. The book started off okay but I found myself disliking Kati more and more as I read on. By the end of the book, I wanted to throw the book against the wall and was cursing myself for actually paying money for it.
At the beginning as she describes her husband, Richard Holbrooke's sudden death and being separated from her parents as a child in Hungary, I felt nothing but sympathy for her. I read on as she described her time in Paris as a student but started to find her a little pretentious about how she bragged about her education and that she's one of those obnoxious people who mix in different languages (mostly French) to make them seem more worldly. She also mentions a.k.a brags, about how she uses large words to impress people. But my dislike for her really started to grow as she described her relationship with Peter Jennings. She was working as a reporter for ABC as well and likes to remind the reader quite a bit about how much she was giving up to be with Peter because she loved him so much. Then she proceeds to mention very briefly that she cheated on Peter. They stay together for a few years and then she decides she can't stay with him any longer. With their separation very fresh and Peter and their kids staying with Kati's sister in Paris around Christmastime, Kati goes to another part of France with Richard Holbrooke. Very telling is that her children and her parents did not attend when she wed Richard.
So you would think that since she mentioned about how Richard and her were soul mates that all would be smooth sailing, but no, Kati mentions how she cheated on Richard with a man from Hungary. That's when I decided that was over reading this woman's memoir. It became torture to read the constant name-dropping and the constant "I,I,I...me, me, me". I understand that it's a memoir but she comes across as very self-absorbed and self-obsessed. I guess I can be thankful that it was only around 200 pages long.
Plus the back of the book says "...for anyone who has ever fallen in love with Paris..." but there is very little of Paris in the book. Yes, she lives there at points in her life but there is none of the charm or excitement of living in Paris. I felt duped by the book's description. I have not been this disappointed about a book about Paris since reading "C'est La Vie" by Suzy Gershman. I would absolutely recommend skipping this book. Or if you have to read it, don't pay full price for it like I did.
At the beginning as she describes her husband, Richard Holbrooke's sudden death and being separated from her parents as a child in Hungary, I felt nothing but sympathy for her. I read on as she described her time in Paris as a student but started to find her a little pretentious about how she bragged about her education and that she's one of those obnoxious people who mix in different languages (mostly French) to make them seem more worldly. She also mentions a.k.a brags, about how she uses large words to impress people. But my dislike for her really started to grow as she described her relationship with Peter Jennings. She was working as a reporter for ABC as well and likes to remind the reader quite a bit about how much she was giving up to be with Peter because she loved him so much. Then she proceeds to mention very briefly that she cheated on Peter. They stay together for a few years and then she decides she can't stay with him any longer. With their separation very fresh and Peter and their kids staying with Kati's sister in Paris around Christmastime, Kati goes to another part of France with Richard Holbrooke. Very telling is that her children and her parents did not attend when she wed Richard.
So you would think that since she mentioned about how Richard and her were soul mates that all would be smooth sailing, but no, Kati mentions how she cheated on Richard with a man from Hungary. That's when I decided that was over reading this woman's memoir. It became torture to read the constant name-dropping and the constant "I,I,I...me, me, me". I understand that it's a memoir but she comes across as very self-absorbed and self-obsessed. I guess I can be thankful that it was only around 200 pages long.
Plus the back of the book says "...for anyone who has ever fallen in love with Paris..." but there is very little of Paris in the book. Yes, she lives there at points in her life but there is none of the charm or excitement of living in Paris. I felt duped by the book's description. I have not been this disappointed about a book about Paris since reading "C'est La Vie" by Suzy Gershman. I would absolutely recommend skipping this book. Or if you have to read it, don't pay full price for it like I did.
January 17, 2013
My reaction is mixed to this book that's described as a memoir, raising unfortunate expectations in me as a reader that might be better fulfilled by her PREVIOUS memoir: ENEMIES OF THE STATE (though til I read that, I cannot know whether my suspicions will prove true or not, or whether I would then read this book differently.)
This book seems to have been written relatively soon after Kati Marton's beloved husband Richard Holbrooke died suddenly; consequently, the author seems influenced, I think, in her purpose and orientation, emphasizing her life with Holbrooke with a fondness that led to the love story part of the title: Paris: A Love Story. That part of her short book worked "just fine,"
but while she did fill in some of her "before Holbrooke" personal life history, I was hoping for either less (meaning focus exclusively on her love story) or more --particularly, more INSIGHT from the author than appeared, and maybe even more historical context -- something a bit more than leaning on Paris to serve as the glue for the book whose potential was only superficially achieved.
Morton's book contained much appreciated photos; in one, I spied the face of the widowed Queen Noor (of Jordan), who also fell in love with someone on the world stage --King Hussein --and wrote movingly about herself, her beloved husband, and the context of their life together in the well-done LEAP OF FAITH: MEMOIRS OF AN UNEXPECTED LIFE. I wonder if Kati Marton had set how own book on the shelf and waited for a few years more, whether she might have instead been able to create something more in that vein.
This book seems to have been written relatively soon after Kati Marton's beloved husband Richard Holbrooke died suddenly; consequently, the author seems influenced, I think, in her purpose and orientation, emphasizing her life with Holbrooke with a fondness that led to the love story part of the title: Paris: A Love Story. That part of her short book worked "just fine,"
but while she did fill in some of her "before Holbrooke" personal life history, I was hoping for either less (meaning focus exclusively on her love story) or more --particularly, more INSIGHT from the author than appeared, and maybe even more historical context -- something a bit more than leaning on Paris to serve as the glue for the book whose potential was only superficially achieved.
Morton's book contained much appreciated photos; in one, I spied the face of the widowed Queen Noor (of Jordan), who also fell in love with someone on the world stage --King Hussein --and wrote movingly about herself, her beloved husband, and the context of their life together in the well-done LEAP OF FAITH: MEMOIRS OF AN UNEXPECTED LIFE. I wonder if Kati Marton had set how own book on the shelf and waited for a few years more, whether she might have instead been able to create something more in that vein.
February 16, 2013
Kati Marton has had a life-long love for Paris. She studied there in 1968 when she was in college. She served as an ABC correspondent in Europe and met Peter Jennings in Paris during their affair before they married and had two children. She bought a pied-a-terra in Paris with her husband, Richard Holbrooke, after their marriage. Marton describes her marriages to these two enorously complex, and sometimes difficult, men and it was to Paris that she retreated after the sudden death of Holbrooke. A very moving account of the highs and lows of a life lived among the A-list of the political and cultural world.
June 19, 2024
I know memoirs have a generally self important feel, but this one is may take top prize.
Marton was married to Peter Jennings and Richard Holbrooke- not too shabby.
However, the book becomes a platform to bad mouth Jennings and President Obama, name drop, admit to affairs in both her marriages, explain how much money she spent in Paris and how much her two impressive husbands adored her. Gag. I can't believe her children didn't object to the final publication.
I wish I had spent the time reading biographies on both Jennings and Holbrooke instead.
Marton was married to Peter Jennings and Richard Holbrooke- not too shabby.
However, the book becomes a platform to bad mouth Jennings and President Obama, name drop, admit to affairs in both her marriages, explain how much money she spent in Paris and how much her two impressive husbands adored her. Gag. I can't believe her children didn't object to the final publication.
I wish I had spent the time reading biographies on both Jennings and Holbrooke instead.
July 7, 2013
I chose this book expecting a love story that takes place in Paris. What I got was a politial story about news anchors. BOO.
November 8, 2017
Kati Marton was an ABC foreign correspondent who was stationed around the world whose Hungarian parents were jailed as American spies before the family fled Hungary for America during her childhood. She has written multiple books over the course of her career and was married to two prominent characters, Peter Jennings of ABC and Richard Holbrooke who served as an American diplomat. On the surface of it, Marton appears to have led an utterly fascinating life which I was excited to read about, especially framed within the ever-romantic setting of Paris.
I was really disappointed by this book.
Although we learn, more towards the end, that Marton is searching for and learning to live her own life after her partner of 17 years, Richard's death, preceded by a long and somewhat suffocating marriage to Jennings, the fact that the book is told through too many episodes which were overly shaped by Peter or Richard's influence and perspective instead of her own does, I feel, do her a disservice.
While the author is entitled to tell her story in a manner she chooses and is, no doubt, learning how to live as Kati Marton in her own right, it just doesn't feel believable. Not the grief, the passion or the work she has done, more, that this book is Marton processing something genuine but which comes across as just a bit self centred. It's interesting that throughout her story she doesn't seem to take any responsibility for the choices she made, all the while looking for sympathy from the reader. It's not entirely likeable or relatable; I should have been more moved by her story, the words were there but the tone was not.
There were elements of it I enjoyed, but I wanted to know more. When she described the importance in her role as a hostess of the seating chart for dinners with many political colleagues of Richard's mixed with celebrity guests, I wanted more on than the superficiality of why that was the case given the guest lists. When she told of trips abroad and meetings with foreign leaders alongside Richard, again, I wanted to know more about the work they were doing and not just a one-line mention of it. Maybe I was trying to read a different book and it certainly wasn't billed to be what I appear to have been looking for but I wanted to read about a Kati Marton who sounded more interesting than this book made her out to be.
I was really disappointed by this book.
Although we learn, more towards the end, that Marton is searching for and learning to live her own life after her partner of 17 years, Richard's death, preceded by a long and somewhat suffocating marriage to Jennings, the fact that the book is told through too many episodes which were overly shaped by Peter or Richard's influence and perspective instead of her own does, I feel, do her a disservice.
While the author is entitled to tell her story in a manner she chooses and is, no doubt, learning how to live as Kati Marton in her own right, it just doesn't feel believable. Not the grief, the passion or the work she has done, more, that this book is Marton processing something genuine but which comes across as just a bit self centred. It's interesting that throughout her story she doesn't seem to take any responsibility for the choices she made, all the while looking for sympathy from the reader. It's not entirely likeable or relatable; I should have been more moved by her story, the words were there but the tone was not.
There were elements of it I enjoyed, but I wanted to know more. When she described the importance in her role as a hostess of the seating chart for dinners with many political colleagues of Richard's mixed with celebrity guests, I wanted more on than the superficiality of why that was the case given the guest lists. When she told of trips abroad and meetings with foreign leaders alongside Richard, again, I wanted to know more about the work they were doing and not just a one-line mention of it. Maybe I was trying to read a different book and it certainly wasn't billed to be what I appear to have been looking for but I wanted to read about a Kati Marton who sounded more interesting than this book made her out to be.
January 13, 2018
I have been in a Paris reading kick since a recent visit, and this book was such a lovely reminder of that beautiful, historic, sometimes tragic city. I'm rather stingy with my 5 star ratings, usually reserving them for true classics, but if a reading experience like this doesn't deserve 5 stars I'm not sure what does. Ms. Marton obviously had an exciting life as a foreign correspondent and then wife to Peter Jennings and later the diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who I had not heard of but was obviously a hero of American foreign affairs. He had recently passed away suddenly at the time of the writing of this book. This book is up there with Joan Didions' books on grief in that respect, but a bit more gentle with a lot more life to distract one from the loss.
I learned some history of Budapest and France I wasn't aware of, but the truly delicious part of this book is her detailed descriptions of the neighborhoods, jardins, art and cafes of Paris. You could easily create quite a travel guide from this book. Even if it's just in your imagination.
I learned some history of Budapest and France I wasn't aware of, but the truly delicious part of this book is her detailed descriptions of the neighborhoods, jardins, art and cafes of Paris. You could easily create quite a travel guide from this book. Even if it's just in your imagination.
January 21, 2021
I didn't expect (or want) this to be a rom-com about young lovers in the French capital, but I certainly didn't expect it to be what it was - a journalist boasting about her life experiences. In the autobiography, Marton recounts tales of her friendships with diplomats/celebrities/peace-keepers, the cities in the world she has lived in and traveled to, while openly sharing about her failed marriages and adultery.
I enjoyed it well enough to finish (though I did consider jumping ship after the first 100 pages). Marton had a tough upbringing that I would wish upon no-one, and she worked very hard to reach success in her career. I just found it was overly showoff-ish. I didn't know someone could receive so many personally addressed letters from presidents and foreign representatives thanking her for her hospitality.
Do not judge this book by it's title; it is hardly a Paris love story.
I enjoyed it well enough to finish (though I did consider jumping ship after the first 100 pages). Marton had a tough upbringing that I would wish upon no-one, and she worked very hard to reach success in her career. I just found it was overly showoff-ish. I didn't know someone could receive so many personally addressed letters from presidents and foreign representatives thanking her for her hospitality.
Do not judge this book by it's title; it is hardly a Paris love story.
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