Written for the Toronto Star between 1920 and 1924, this selection of energetic pieces from Hemingway sees the author focus his gaze on Paris. Writing with characteristic verve, the author tackles cultural topics in chapters such as Living on $1,000 a Year in Paris, American Bohemians in Paris, and Parisian Boorishness. "The scum of Greenwich Village, New York, has been skimmed off and deposited in large ladles on that section of Paris adjacent to the Café Rotonde. New scum, of course, has risen to take the place of the old, but the oldest scum, the thickest scum and the scummiest scum," Hemingway wryly observes, "has come across the ocean, somehow, and with its afternoon and evening levees has made the Rotonde the leading Latin Quarter showplace for tourists in search of atmosphere."

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His best-known works include A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, the latter of which won the Pulitzer Prize. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.