The 1990s are the Miguel Indurain era in the Tour de France. He entered the race for the first time in 1985 and entered it eleven more consecutive times. His ratings steadily improved and he eventually won for the first time in 1990. He went on to win each year thereafter until 1995. He became the first person to win this race five consecutive times. In 1996, Indurain made a valiant effort but a week of cold, damp riding lead to a case of bronchitis and Bjarne Riis won.

It’s been said that Indurain is the best time trialist. He would make hugh gains and he didn’t do badly when it came to mountain times either. He had an astounding career, holding a World Record in 1994 and claiming gold in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Indurain was built to win. He had an exceptional physique. For example, his resting heart rate was only 29 bpm when an average person’s is 60-80 bpm. This slow heart rate meant that it didn’t have to work so hard during long, arduous mountain climbs.

Indurain’s fantastic tour came to an end in 1996 at the hands of Denmark’s Bjarne Riis. The mountains got the better of him. He retired as possibly the greatest Tour rider ever.

The 1996 Tour had a surprising, notable abandon, Lance Armstrong. He said he wanted to prepare instead for the Olympics in Atlanta. It was during that fall that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasized all over his body. As prove of his superior physique, he returned to racing after aggressive chemotherapy. Bjarne Riis wins the Tour.

In 1997, Riis wants a second win. Near the end of the race he begins to weaken from exhaustion. On the contrary, Ullrich is stronger than ever. During the race, Riis becomes furious, throwing his bike to the ground.

In 1998, the Tour begins in Dublin, Ireland. Ullrich is a well-rounded rider who could do anything. However he begins to fall apart. He couldn’t find the right way to practice. He actually stayed in bed indulging in chocolate. Ullrich would then pull it together in order to train. He would go out and train too hard for his lapsed form and then get sick again. Despite this, he wins the Tour.

Doping is a big problem in the Tour. Riders who had never tested positive now were. A group of Festina riders confess to doping. The police knew they were up against formidable opponents. Riders were crying foul and as a group, they maintained a code of silence. After all, doping had been going on from the very beginning of the Tour. Rider took drugs back then to mask their pain, help them sleep and boost their performance.

In 1999, Lance Armstrong was back, as a gaunt, lean athlete. He trained with such focus and this would be his best weapon against Ullrich. Even Armstrong had been tainted by the doping scandals. He tested positive for corticosteroid but was cleared when it was discovered the tiny traces of steroids came from skin cream he was using. Armstrong dominates the race.

Vanished Smile

On August 21, 1911, the unfathomable happened–Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. More than twenty-four hours passed before museum officials realized she was gone. The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young provocateurs of a new art. As French detectives using the latest methods of criminology, including fingerprinting, tried to trace the thieves, a burgeoning international media hyped news of the heist.

No story captured the imagination of the world quite like this one. Thousands flocked to the Louvre to see the empty space where the painting had hung. They mourned as if Mona Lisa were a lost loved one, left flowers and notes, and set new attendance records. For more than two years, Mona Lisa’s absence haunted the art world, provoking the question: Was she lost forever? A century later, questions still linger.

Part love story, part mystery, Vanished Smile reopens the case of the most audacious and perplexing art theft ever committed. R. A. Scotti’s riveting, ingeniously realized account is itself a masterly portrait of a world in transition. Combining her skills as a historian and a novelist, Scotti turns the tantalizing clues into a story of the painting’s transformation into the most familiar and lasting icon of all time.

The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa

Paris from the Ground Up

Paris is the most personal of cities. There is a Paris for the medievalist, and another for the modernist—a Paris for expatriates, philosophers, artists, romantics, and revolutionaries of every stripe. James H. S. McGregor brings these multiple perspectives into focus throughout this concise, unique history of the City of Light.

His panorama begins with an ancient Gallic fortress on the Seine, burned to the ground by its own defenders in a vain effort to starve out Caesar’s legions. After ninth-century raids by the Vikings ended, Parisians expanded the walls of their tiny sanctuary on the Ile de la Cité, turning the river’s right bank into a thriving commercial district and the Rive Gauche into a college town. Gothic spires expressed a taste for architectural novelty, matched only by the palaces and pleasure gardens of successive monarchs whose ingenuity made Paris the epitome of everything French. The fires of Revolution threatened all that had come before, but Baron Haussmann saw opportunity in the wreckage. No planned city in the world is more famous than his.

Paris from the Ground Up allows readers to trace the city’s evolution in its architecture and art—from the Roman arena to the Musée d’Orsay, from the Louvre’s defensive foundations to I. M. Pei’s transparent pyramids. Color maps, along with identifying illustrations, make the city accessible to visitors by foot, Metro, or riverboat.

Paris from the Ground Up