Paris arouses strong emotions. In its long and vast history, it has been variously represented as a prison, a paradise and a vision of hell. As Andrew Hussey shows in this remarkable book, literature is an accurate reflection of daily life: Paris really is made up of violently different spaces and multiple personalities, always at odds with each other and often in noisy collision.

Like Peter Ackroyd's biography of London, Paris makes no claim to be a definitive history. Instead, it is an account of the city's history from the perspective of those who experienced it – its citizenry. The city itself is like a palimpsest: the very stones and street names allude to its often turbulent past. It is a city of secret adventures, of hidden meanings which, on journeys from royal palaces to bars, brothels and opium dens, this book uncovers. Spanning 2,000 years of Paris's history, this is a sweeping, vivid portrait of an endlessly fascinating city.

Andrew Hussey talks to the Book Bites website about Paris: A Secret History here.