This first book about the famous Select Cafe in Paris, richly illustrated with the faces of its patrons, gives a unique glimpse into the daily rhythm and social and intellectual life of a literary cafe. Here is an intimate view--in word and image--of its waiters and artist patrons, enabling one to understand the importance of cafe life--that "third great place" of every Parisian or would-be Parisian. See here the famous Montparnasse cafe that has been so vital to Paris life for nearly nine decades: from Hemingway, Beauvoir, Picasso, James Baldwin, and George Plimpton to the writers and artists who continue to work quietly here in the back room and and meet their friends late in the day for drinks. The artists have their work on the walls, the novelists include the cafe setting in their fiction. The quiet and drama of the Select world illustrates the centrality of cafes--particularly this one--to Parisian social, cultural, and intellectual life. The book gives narrative introductions and witty drawings of cafe clientele and staff and is organized through a history of the Select cafe, its daily and seasonal rhythms, particular colorful clientele, and a few of its typical cafe/brasserie food (including a few recipes).

Noel Riley Fitch is an award-winning biographer and historian of expatriate intellectuals in Paris during the first half of the 1900s.

She is a full-time writer, lectures widely, and teaches a professional writing course at the University of Southern California (during the regular academic year) and a summer literature course at the American University in Paris.

In addition to being frequently interviewed on radio and television, she has appeared in several documentary films, including Berenice Abbott: A View of the Twentieth Century (1992) and the A&E biography of Julia Child first shown October 14, 1997, which is based on Fitch's Biography of Julia Child, Appetite for Life.

Fitch earned a Ph.D. in literature from Washington State University and has taught in Washington, Massachusetts, and California. She has edited a book entitled Faith and Imagination with Richard Etulain and published scholarly and journalistic articles in numerous periodicals.

Rick Tulka was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1955. He studied at Pratt Institute and for a time studied with the legendary caricaturist David Levine. For over 30 years, Tulka�s caricatures and humorous illustrations have appeared in numerous American and European newspapers, magazines and books. Tulka is a regular contributor to America�s number one humor magazine, MAD, and is proud to be one of the usual gang of idiots. With Michael Jackson, he illustrated Moonwalker � The Coloring Book for children and the book Today I Am A Ma�am, for the American actress Valerie Harper. His collection of caricatures of French politicians from the neighboring Parliament is on permanent exhibit at restaurant Chez Fran�oise, located in the Invalides Air Terminal in Paris. His editorial illustrains have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Harper's Magazine, The Playboy Jazz Festival Magazine/Program, BeE Magazine, New York Daily News, New York Post, People, National Lampoon, Advertising Age, Rolling Stone, Book of the Month Club, Raleigh News & Observer, Reader's Digest, Adweek, New York Magazine, Money Magazine, Business Week, Games Magazine, Golf Magazine, and Oxford American.