Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favourite Parisian street. "I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs", Sciolino explains as she celebrates the area's rich history and vibrant lives. While many cities suffer from the levelling effects of globalisation, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. Sciolino reveals the charms and idiosyncrasies of this street and its residents-the Tunisian greengrocer, the husband-and-wife cheesemongers, the showman who's been running a transvestite cabaret for more than half a century, the owner of a 100-year-old bookstore, the woman who repairs eighteenth-century mercury barometers-making Paris come alive in all its majesty. The Only Street in Paris will make readers hungry for Paris and for the kind of street life that is all too quickly disappearing.

Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favourite Parisian street. "I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs", Sciolino explains as she celebrates the area's rich history and vibrant lives. While many cities suffer from the levelling effects of globalisation, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. Sciolino reveals the charms and idiosyncrasies of this street and its residents-the Tunisian greengrocer, the husband-and-wife cheesemongers, the showman who's been running a transvestite cabaret for more than half a century, the owner of a 100-year-old bookstore, the woman who repairs eighteenth-century mercury barometers-making Paris come alive in all its majesty. The Only Street in Paris will make readers hungry for Paris and for the kind of street life that is all too quickly disappearing.

Blending memoir, travelogue and history, The Seine is a love letter to Paris and the river that determined its destiny. Master storyteller and The New York Times foreign correspondent Elaine Sciolino explores the Seine through its lively characters-a bargewoman, a riverbank book- seller, a houseboat dweller, a famous cinematographer-and follows it from the remote plateaus of Burgundy, through Paris and to the sea. The Seine is a vivid, enchanting portrait of the world's most irresistible river.

In the spring of 1978, as a foreign correspondent in Paris, Elaine Sciolino was seduced by a river. In The Seine, she builds the story of the river through memoir, travelogue and history, writing a love letter to the city she has called home since 2002. Sciolino begins in Paris, then moves east to discover the river's origins-both real and mythical-in Burgundy. She celebrates the river's rich history and captures the charm of its lively characters: a bargewoman who worked on the river for decades, a bookseller along the riverbanks, a houseboat dweller and a famous cameraman who knows how to capture the river's light. She patrols the Seine with river police, rows with a restorer of antique boats, discovers a champagne vineyard, and even dares to drink from and swim in the river. In this rich portrait, Sciolino explains why the Seine is the world's most romantic river and invites readers to explore its secrets and magic for themselves.

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"France is a seductive country, seductive in its elegance, its beauty, its sensual pleasures, and its joie de vivre. Elaine Sciolino, the longtime Paris bureau chief of "The New York Times," has discovered that seduction is much more. It is the key to understanding France and plays a crucial role not only in how the French fall in love, but also in how they conduct business, enjoy food and drink, define style, engage in intellectual debate, elect politicians, and project power around the world. In "La Seduction," Sciolino gives us an inside view of how seduction works in all areas of French life, from the shops of Paris to the halls of government, from the gardens of Versailles to the agricultural heartland.

In a new preface written for the paperback edition, Sciolino shows how the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case has thrust France into a searching debate about the future of seduction and the culture of pleasure, which cuts to the heart of France's national identity. In this as in every other aspect of French life, Elaine Sciolino proves herself to be a charming, insightful, and--yes--seductive guide.

The book that revealed Iran to the West, now with a new Afterword. Elaine Sciolino updates "Persian Mirrors" to include coverage of the 2005 presidential election in Iran.

As a correspondent for "Newsweek" and "The New York Times, " Sciolino has had more experience covering revolutionary Iran than any other American reporter. She was aboard the airplane that took Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran in 1979 and was there for the revolution, the hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq war, the rise of President Khatami, the riots of 1999, and the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. In "Persian Mirrors, " Sciolino takes us into the public and private spaces of Iran, uncovering an alluring and seductive nation where a great battle is raging -- not for control over territory, but for the soul of its people.