Rick Steves Travel Guides

Buy the France book. Cut the sections out that pertain to your trip. Carry just the section you need while out for the day.

The France book, in common with his other guide books, is quite large and covers the areas of France that he considers worthwhile for an overview of the country. In common with his other books it misses out large sections of the country that he doesn't think a first time visitor from the US would be interested in. For an overview, and if you are covering various parts of the country, it is a very good guide.

The city and regional guide books zoom in much closer, list many more things to do and correspondingly list more hotels and restaurants, and walks, than would fit in the big book.

I have never used a Pocket guide or Snapshot but I would expect those to be much smaller regional books only covering the basic highlights.

If I am going to be in a region for more than 2 or 3 nights I always get the regional books, and always also have the country book.

I also read other good guides like Lonely Planet, Michelin Green guides, and Time Out.

I also would buy the main France book and cut it up. The Snapshot guide is a chapter lifted directly out of that book, with no additional info. I personally don't love the Pocket Paris format and it is not lighter than other books. The France book doesn't have some of the walking tour and museum tour detail that's in the full-sized Paris book, but it does have plenty of info (170 pages) for your four days there. You can also download free audio tour versions of some of the walking and museum tour routes.

The 2015 France guide book would cover your whole trip, but with fewer pages about the specific cities you'll be in.

I recently purchased the 2015 France guide book as well as the 2015 Paris guide book and 2015 Provence & French Riviera guide book. I just ended up with all three books because I wasn't sure where I wanted to go. If you are okay with paying for all three books, that's what I would do.

The individual Paris guide book and the 2015 Provence & The French Riviera guide book would cover Paris/Nice/Monaco. There are just a few pages in the France book on Caen.

Just to clarify:

The Snapshot Normandy book is lifted directly from the France book, with no additional information. Buy one or the other, but not both.

The Paris and Provence And The French Riviera books have much more detail then the general France book. They have chapters on each major museum, city walk, etc, as well as special chapters on "Paris With Children," "Shopping In Paris," etc. The Provence/Riviera book has information on many more locations (Monaco is covered in both, but some other towns are not).

Whether you need the extra stuff that for a trip of your duration and interests is up to you. So:

If you want to carry less or spend less on books, get the France book.
If you want all the details, get three separate books: Snapshot Normandy, Paris, and Provence And The French Riviera.

Another poster pointed out you can take advantage of Amazon's "Look Inside" feature before you buy, if you're not near a bookstore that carries these titles.

I also agree with Nigel that you should look at other books too, to get a different perspective.

Having purchased the Paris pocket guide before our trip, I would recommend getting the full guide on Paris instead. After purchasing the pocket guide I found myself referring to the full size guide over and over again for information that wasn't included in the pocket guide.

Lesson learned......

I always buy both the France guidebook and the Paris guidebook when they are updated each year and the Provence book too. The France guidebook doesn't have as much on Paris as getting the separate Paris guidebook would give you. The pocket guides and snapshot books have info from the main guides. You can mark your books up to show where you want to go and then things are easy to find. Using colored tabs is also good.

Just got my delivery of the Streetwise Paris map for our upcoming trip. Laminated, detailed, fantastic. Even has the Metro lines & numbers, so one can see at a glance how to get from here to there. Great purchase!

The Streetwise maps have always been the best.

I'm old school, but I never travel with or trust just one guidebook. It's Rick, Fodors and Frommers for me.