Graham Robb is arguably the best biographer of France writing today. His “Discovery of France” won so many awards it would be difficult to enumerate them here. Now Robb has come out with “Parisians,” an adventure history of Paris. But it is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives including an account of Napoleon’s first sexual encounter. For all those who love the city of light and love, you will be enchanted even further by Graham Robb and “Parisians.” Join us as I talk with this preeminent biographer on The Frumkes Show.

Flora Fraser, the elegant biographer of Pauline Bonaparte, who incidentally is the stepdaughter of playwright Harold Pinter (Nobel Prize 2005) who married her mother, Lady Antonia Fraser, stops by to discuss Napoleon’s sister who was once considered the most beautiful woman in Europe. Not only was Pauline Bonaparte beautiful, she was also apparently frisky and kinky. . .

  David Grann, a staff writer at the New Yorker, was so obsessed about what happened to the great British explorer Percy Fawcett when he disappeared in the Amazon jungles in 1925 that he put his life on the line and followed Fawcett’s path to find out.  “The Lost City of Z,” is Grann’s blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon and what really did happen to Fawcett.  If this and the fact that the book is a best seller aren’t enough to make you listen to my interview with David maybe the knowledge that Brad Pitt is making a movie of “The Lost City of Z” will.

Sarah Lyall who used to write a book column for the New York Times among other things married an Englishman and moved to London ten years ago. Result, she penned THE ANGLO FILES; A Field Guide to the British. Kirkus said of it “Fresh, funny and occasionally wicked.” Listen to our interview. . . same thing, fresh, funny, and occasionally wicked.

Jeanette is a fascinating woman who writes fascinating books. As the daughter of James Conant one time president of Harvard University Jeanette grew up around fascinating characters. In The Irregulars she talks about some dashing British intelligence agents during World War II whose names may surprise you. Do the names Roald Dahl, or Ian Fleming sound familiar.

Since I reviewed Nicholson Baker for the New York Times Book Review years ago,  he has become one of our most inventive and daring writers, unafraid to experiment stylistically or  raise hackles wherever he thinks necessary. Often writing with his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek, Nicholson skewers his targets with an immense erudition.

Andrea, author of A VENETIAN AFFAIR lives in Rome where he is a correspondent for the newspaper La Stampa. Pretend you are listening to Radio Italy.

Richard who at one time was chief foreign correspondent for The New York Times as written a superb biography of Rutherford one of the lesser known but truly great geniuses of modern history. Rutherford is responsible for the physical representation of the atom the way we all know it. Reeves is a spectacular writer.

THE DISCOVERY OF FRANCE has been called the greatest book about travelling through France by bicycle ever written.