Softcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 190 pages. The Manual of St-Germain-des-Pres is a "guide" to the legendary creative and intellectual playground of mid-20th-century Paris. With boundless energy and a delicious sense of humor, Boris Vian takes readers on a star-studded romp through the underground culture of jazz clubs, Left Bank cafes, surrealist and existentialist literature, and the various eccentrics and artists that made up this legendary scene. Paris in the '50s was an incredible place and time: With the end of the war, everything seemed possible. The list of luminaries Vian ran with, and who are captured here in previously unpublished photographs, includes Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Juliette Greco, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Jacques Prevert, and Jean Cocteau. Clean copy.