Acclaimed author Noel Riley Fitch, abetted by noted artist Rick Tulka, serves the dish on Select, the famous Montparnasse cafe that for nearly nine decades has been so vital to Paris & its intellectual denizens: from Hemingway, Beauvoir, Picasso, James Baldwin, & George Plimpton to the writers & artists who continue to work quietly there in the back room or heatedly debate every topic imaginable into the night. The artists have their work on the walls; the novelists include the cafe setting in their fiction. The quiet & drama of the Select world illustrates the centrality of cafes -- particularly this one -- to Parisian social, cultural, & intellectual life. Blending pithy profiles & witty drawings of clientele & staff, the book is organized around a history of the cafe, its daily & seasonal rhythms, particular colorful patrons, & even its typical cafe/brasserie food (including a few recipes).