Taxi Tales from Paris
by Nicky Gentil
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Pub Date 28 Nov 2019 | Archive Date 20 Jan 2020
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Description
“A collection of exchanges - as surprising as they are interesting - between British author Nicky Gentil and some of the cabdrivers who have crossed her path. You will have a great time reading this book!” Taxi G7 Magazine, Paris
Taxi Tales From Paris is not your typical account of what happens when you move to another country. Nicky Gentil’s memoir offers the reader a truly original insight into life in the French capital because, as the title suggests, everything is seen through the prism of her most memorable taxi rides taken during the thirty years she has lived there.
Hugely entertaining, with some delightful comic touches, Gentil’s tales cover a wide variety of subjects such as her love of her adoptive country, the cultural differences she frequently encounters, the joys of parenthood, or indeed her ever-present passion for jazz, to quote but a few examples.
By the end of this book, as with any memoir set in the City of Light, you will immediately want to leap on board the next Eurostar going but, on this occasion, with one very specific aim in mind: to jump – upon arriving in Paris – into the very first taxi you see!
A Note From the Publisher
Available Editions
EDITION | Ebook |
ISBN | 9781838597207 |
PRICE | US$6.99 (USD) |
PAGES | 200 |
Featured Reviews
This was an incredibly quick read with stories I enjoyed from a place I hold dear in my heart. I don't think i ever rode in a Taxi the one time I was in Paris, but maybe I will if I ever go back. I thought the essarys were delightful and the books was a fun littoe pick me up.
I enjoyed reading this book. It was funny. Interesting and a good lift you up book. It’s full of the insight of the taxi driver. As you can imagine they have all sorts in there car
What a wonderful bright and positive book to end my reading with in 2019.
Taxi Tales from Paris is a simple title that sums up the notion of this collection of journeys and incidents while travelling around Paris by cab. What it doesn’t reveal however, is the literary charm and skill the author utilises to share her experiences.
You know a nice person just doesn’t wake up each morning and follows on another day in their life. You sense reading this book, in no time at all that Nicky Gentil is a special person. Full of compassion, life and empathy.
This is a life affirming account of the adoptive city she calls home. It is some of the recollections of times spent in a taxi, the reasons for those trips and the conversations that arose in those times.
I found the insights into the character and life-changing incidents from the author’s life inspirational. She has many reasons to be crusty and at odds with life based on her own struggles. Yet this does not cloud her narrative, which is one of hope and optimism.
A short book that gives a lift and promotes the attitude of making the most of each day.
So entertaining I’ve ridden in taxis in Paris and have found the drivers to be interesting opinionated.Wish this book full of characters had been longer really enjoyed #netgalley#matador
This is a delightful collection of short stories. It is all Paris taxi stories. Although easy to read in one setting, I wanted it to last longer. The author is both a keen observer and a good listener, and we are the fortunate recipients!

An absolutely delightful book of short tales of Gentil's encounters with taxi drivers throughout her many years in Paris. I loved this warm-hearted, engaging book.
British translator and author Nicky Gentil moved to Paris 30 years ago, and over the span of the last three decades, she has taken her fair share of taxi rides. Inspired by some of the most memorable conversations she's had with parisian cabdrivers (and there have been lots of them), Taxi Tales from Paris was then written, and published last November.
This is a light, fun read, full of great memories from someone who clearly loves living in Paris. It's one of those books that will make you want to visit the city, and it is, in a way, a hommage to all the charming (and not so charming) cabdrivers out there. It's also an account of the cultural differentes the author has encountered over the years, her love story with jazz, and her wonderful experience with parenthood.
It isn't life-changing, or something I'll still be thinking about obsessively in a few weeks, but it was a lovely read nonetheless, and something anyone who loves Paris will appreciate.
A quick, light, engaging and often funny read - I love Paris, and this read made me want to return sooner. I'm not sure I would read it again in a hurry and I felt that had it been longer I may have begun to lose interest.
This is an easy breezy collection of anecdotes from the author's life - it is interesting how she has loosely fashioned a thread of taxi conversations with her observations of people and her own life experiences. The author's love for Paris shines through and its a great quick read for any francophile.
Fun and quirky book about meeting with Paris taxi drivers and the anecdotes resulting from them. Gives a slice of Parisian flavor rarely seen in other books about the French capital and kinda restores your faith in humanity reading the way these drivers - perfect strangers - look out for their passengers and really seem to want to do right by them.
I would have preferred a bit more about actual taxi rides and less of the 'life' surrounding them (which ultimately made the taxi rides' anecdotes about fifty percent or just slightly more of the actual book), but on the whole, a good, quick read that does bring a smile to your face
Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. Not sure what to say about this book as cannot say it was good or bad. Think I will leave the reviews to other readers and see what they think
This is a quick read that was well written and fun to read. I love books like this simply for the personal touch and relatability. The fact that it’s set in France makes it that much more fun and quirky.
A light, quick read showcasing the author's experiences with Paris taxi drivers. These are very short anecdotes of maybe a page or two each. Great for when you have a couple of minutes to kill.
A lovely little book of stories from meetings with taxi drivers. The author clearly loves Paris you can tell on every page and the stories are lovely.
Nice easy light read and really fun.
Most Enjoyable....
A delightful collection of short tales taken from taxi rides in the French capital. Entertaining, enlightening and amusing written with a lightness of touch and an empathetic tone. Most enjoyable.
I enjoyed every page of this fast, fun and at times funny read. Loved how the author made you feel like you were in the cans with her. Highly recommended this book to anyone who’s ridden in a cab or who’s been to Paris..
You don't have to know or love Paris to like this collection, which is a pretty quick read. It's a nice personal take on the author's experiences, and give you a little flavor of Paris while also being entertaining.
Thanks very much for the review copy!!
A quick easy read of a taxi drivers tales of the people she has met along the way. If you’re looking for something you don’t have to think too much about - this is it!
I really enjoyed "Taxi Tales from Paris" by Nicky Gentil. It is a collection of stories about rides in Taxis the author tskes in the city of Love, Paris. This was funny and well written. It is a wonderful book to help you travel to anothrr country and give you a few laughs and sone smiles during this time of "stay-at-home" orders and quarantines. I think this book is wonderful. I highly recommend it if you want a laugh or just something to take your mind off of everything.
I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.
Description
“A collection of exchanges - as surprising as they are interesting - between British author Nicky Gentil and some of the cabdrivers who have crossed her path. You will have a great time reading this book!” Taxi G7 Magazine, Paris
Taxi Tales From Paris is not your typical account of what happens when you move to another country. Nicky Gentil’s memoir offers the reader a truly original insight into life in the French capital because, as the title suggests, everything is seen through the prism of her most memorable taxi rides taken during the thirty years she has lived there.
Hugely entertaining, with some delightful comic touches, Gentil’s tales cover a wide variety of subjects such as her love of her adoptive country, the cultural differences she frequently encounters, the joys of parenthood, or indeed her ever-present passion for jazz, to quote but a few examples.
By the end of this book, as with any memoir set in the City of Light, you will immediately want to leap on board the next Eurostar going but, on this occasion, with one very specific aim in mind: to jump – upon arriving in Paris – into the very first taxi you see!
My Review
For anyone who has visited Paris and would like to visit Paris this is a great example and enjoyable read that transforms you to the streets of Paris through the eyes of Nicky Gentil. It is greatly done and very entertaining.
I highly recommend for anyone who wants to have a slice of Paris easily detailed. Definitely a coffee table book.
Such a terrific, fun memoir of moving to Paris to live an ex-pat lifestyle. Made me jealous!
Many thanks to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for my ARC. All opinions are my own.
This is a light hearted book, an easy read that can be picked up when you only have a short time available.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this book in exchange for a review. I will be putting this review on Amazon too.
An easy & fun book to read while traveling. I went back & forth between this book of tiny taxi tales & another much heavier book that I'll continue to work on during the next flight. Not completely riveting but perfect for breaking up the mood of the heavier book and I did enjoy these tiny funny tales!
Beautiful and lovely this book was such a nice read. Thank you for letting me have a change to enjoy this gorgeous story.
Such a fun read. I have only been in a taxi once, in NYC, and I was too young to hold a conversation with one. Paris is on my bucket list and I hope that I am able to have conversations with the taxi drivers when I am there. This was a quick read because I kept wanting to know more about her encounters with the drivers. All of the stories were so fun to read.
A lovely read, perfect for summer. Enjoyable, entertaining and will stand up to repeat readings. Inspires me to want to travel more.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for provide me with a digital copy in exchange for my honest review.
Entretenido, rapido, facil de leer. La premisa me resulto llamativa enseguida, al igual que la bella portada.
Nunca tuve la experiencia de subirme a un taxi en Paris, pero hay historias que se sienten cercanas, y pude disfrutar de las historias.
I don’t know what it is about Paris but it is a city that gets under your skin. You cannot fail to fall completely in love with it. I am a total Francophile and I love books set in Paris, even more so when it is a non-fictional account of this beautiful city. It is with this in mind that I have to tell you about this gorgeous book – Taxi Tales from Paris. It is a book made up of quirky encounters that author Nicky Gentil has had with taxi drivers in Paris.
The tales were delightful. They were funny, cute, endearing and all show how these journeys and encounters have helped shape Gentil’s many years in Paris. It is an adorable book which is over far too quickly. You should probably treasure and take your time with Taxi Tales from Paris but I couldn’t put it down.
Pick up Taxi Tales from Paris. You will be awfully glad you did.
Taxi Tales from Paris by Nicky Gentil is available now.
I don't really know what to say about this book. Yes, it was charming, but it was very slight. I myself adore Paris and, whilst I therefore found the taxi tales charming, I feel that other people would fail to find the point of many of them. (A tale that Ethiopian sounds like Portuguese, or that taxi drivers in Bordeaux are nice, as examples)
To me it read like a long magazine article, or a series of vignettes to be serialised each week in a magazine. If I had bought it I would have been disappointed with the volume of the book; I would imagine other readers may also be disappointed with the content.
I chose to read this surprisingly slim volume for no particular reason. I do not live in Paris, and even if I did, I doubt I would have had the luxury of taking taxis on a regular basis. The one visit there has made me confident about that one point.
The author has spent quite a big part of her life in Paris (as long as I have been alive!), and her fondness for the city, the language, her family, and music comes through with the bits she lets drop. These are a set of anecdotes, sometimes a few pages to set the scene and just a page long at others. There are more 'nice' stories than unpleasant ones making it a delightful read.
I liked the author's style of writing and the pictures that it painted of otherwise ordinary journeys. She sometimes took away something from her interactions in a taxi that other people might not have. The only reason I did not give it a full five stars is that I wanted more. Maybe a little more coherence in the narration and definitely more of the tales since I did not feel like I was done with it by the time the last page came around!
I would recommend this to people who like reading real-life short (mostly positive) experiences and have little time to invest in a larger tome.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
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