PARIS — Living the good life on a trip abroad requires at least a glance through a travel guide or two before the flight. And the Paris-based publisher Wilfried LeCarpentier wants to make that research as effortlessly elegant as the trip itself.

Mr. LeCarpentier is the founder of Authentik, a new brand of niche travel books that targets an independent-minded cosmopolitan reader. “This is not for people who travel in groups. It’s not just about, ‘I am going to Paris to go to Paris,'” he said over lunch at Le Café Marly, a stylish restaurant within a wing of the Louvre Museum.

In both their shape and prose, the Authentik books offer an attractive alternative to the sagging shelves of travel guides that, though comprehensive, are written and designed with all the flair of textbooks.

Earlier this year, Mr. LeCarpentier published his Paris series: three notebook-size volumes (sold individually) titled “Artistik Paris,” “Chic Paris,” and “Gourmet Paris.” In 2007, he launched the brand with three books on London that address the same categories of art, style, and food. A series on New York City is slated for 2009. With a retail price of $16.95 each, the London and Paris series are available locally at Barnes & Noble, Shakespeare & Company, and the New York University Book Center.

The books, which are all designed alike, have the look of artist’s notebooks. They’re bound in brown craft paper and can fit easily into a pants pocket; an elastic band keeps the book closed tight. Inside, the pages of acid-free paper are illustrated with sketches and watercolors by the artist Alain Bouldouyre. The books feature several maps, ribbon bookmarks, and a pocket in the back containing a slim blank book for your own notes. The books also come with a small bar code that allows a mobile phone with Internet access to load the content into the phone; after downloading software at ScanLife.com, a reader can take the information around town in a digital format.

Initially, it’s the design of the books that sets them apart in a bookshop. At the W.H. Smith on the Rue de Rivoli, I spied “Artistik Paris” and snapped it up entirely for the look of it. Then, with some time to read, I found myself engaged by the prose.

From a passage on a visual arts destination: “Created in 1977, Louise is an association of contemporary galleries in the new-build 13th arrondissement, with an emphasis on emerging artists and a policy of shared vernissage opening nights. Worth looking out for are the trendy conceptual and fashion-world artists at Air de Paris, In Situ, young artists at gb agency, design gallery Galerie Kreo and Jousse Entreprise with its mix of young artists and classic modern furniture.”

Opening a chapter of “Bookish Pursuits and City Scribes,” you’ll find this introduction:

“France prides itself on being a literary nation, and Saint-Germain-des-Pres is its literary epicenter. True, many publishers have moved away, but prestigious Gallimard and numerous smaller publishing houses are still based here, along with the Académie Française, the austere policeman of the French language based in the Institut de France.”

While the text offers direct information, it does so with the warmth of a brainy, yet stylish friend sitting around after a long lunch. Not coincidentally, that description neatly fits Mr. LeCarpentier himself. Slightly professorial, yet youthful and dapper in a brown velvet blazer and jeans, Mr. LeCarpentier has the quiet authority of one who always knows what’s best to order. Indeed, we ate what he determined to be the best thing on the menu — the lobster salad — as he described his efforts in the publishing world.

“I started out with the draft of a book about the Rive Gauche,” he said. “I wanted it to capture a lifestyle of this neighborhood, but it was too early.”

When he could not find a publisher for a book about Paris’s chic bohemia, he broadened his view and established his own publishing company, Mont-Tonnerre Books, in 2006. After living around the world and working stints in marketing and advertising, he laid out his vision for a new type of travel book, one that combined respect for craftsmanship with excellent writing in the service of connoisseurship. The target audience would be willing to hop on a plane to see a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition — and would want some savvy guidance, too. “I didn’t want to copy anybody else,” the editor said.

And the process of creating something new has made this an intense labor of love. Each book is written by an expert in the city and subject, then edited by Mr. LeCarpentier and his staff. He works out distribution deals with co-publishers: Globe Pequot has the American rights and Flammerion has the French. He himself presents the books to bookstores and occasionally pops in to check on the presentation and displays, which I saw firsthand.

After lunch, he invited me to visit the famed English bookshop Brentano’s, on Avenue de L’Opéra. Its tall, narrow windows contained a display of books within a 5-foot-tall travel trunk — complete with a foldout desk, old-fashioned typewriter, and attaché case — that Mr. LeCarpentier had custom-built by La Malle Bernard, the French firm known for handmade luggage since 1846.

Mr. LeCarpentier was especially eager for the visit because he wanted to share with the Brentano’s staff some news that we had discovered together. During lunch, two young women at the table next to us were flipping through his books. The Parisian woman at the table was delightedly reading through “Artistik Paris” and “Gourmet Paris,” which her visiting friend had just bought at Brentano’s.

Mr. LeCarpentier beamed with joy as he chatted with them and accepted their praise. He then offered his card. “Send me an e-mail and I’ll send you ‘Chic Paris,'” he told the young woman. “You should really have the complete set.”