Michelin also has a good website. www.viamichelin.com. You can view maps, plan routes, find nearby hotels, restaurants and sightseeing. The hotel page of that website is http://www.viamichelin.com/web/Hotels. Use the button "more options" on that page and you can search by star rating, features, key words and other details.

Michelin doesn't have stars for lodging. Their ratings are a little different from others and from the official star rating in France, that is why I find them a little unusual and hard to evaluate. I think they are not too far off, though, I just don't find their descriptions very complete at all in comparison to guidebooks like Frommers or Fodors (I haven't actually seen Frommers in a few years, I used to like it a lot).

Sometimes you have to know Michelin's style, also, as I think sometimes they may comment on some unusual thing about a hotel (like the garden) and not say anything at all about the rooms and accommodations. I presume in that case, the message is the rooms are not so great.

It is true they are easy to find at a bookstore, but they have a few lodging options listed in the green guides, you have to get the red guide for more extensive lists. And I don't think the OP wants to buy the Michelin red guide just for hotels for this trip. I wouldn't, anyway. I check them online sometimes (I can get it at my library, though), and I think the info online is not as complete, but I might be remembering wrong.

I like Rick Steves for his "walks" in cities and towns. And, now he has added free audio tours for iPods.I do not use his books for hotels or dining. I agree that a Michelin guide is a great resource while traveling in France.

My favorite of all time for lodging and food is the Hachette Guide; second best is Michelin. I would use Rick Steves as a guide NOT to eat or stay at a place. And just for general information, I love the Cadogan Guidebooks. For research, I use the DK books, but they're heavy and not great for lugging around on the actual trip.

We prefer regional travel/lifestyle magazines over books, for example, Bretagne Magazine Balades & Randonnées
http://www.journaux.fr/bretagne-maga...re_119962.html

or Côté Ouest (or Est or Sud or Paris)
http://www.cotemaison.fr/cote-region/ouest/

The Côté magazine family has unfailingly given us our best French dining, sightseeing and shopping tips for the past several years. I keep every copy.

Their magazines are like an even better French-focused version of the gone-but-not-forgotten European Travel & Life.

Definitely Michelin Red for accommodation. I have also use the Rough Guide's Le Routier guide for cheap and cheerful. I find Sawday hugely impractical for travelling. Fine if you book in advance for fixed dates

If you are looking for fascinating insights and gorgeous photos in books about Paris, the Loire Valley, etc, then you should run, not walk, to your preferred online bookstore and order anything you can get your hands on by French historian Jean-Marie Perouse de Montclos. The current edition of his Loire Valley book sells for more than $200 (!), but a new edition is coming about that can be pre-ordered for under $20. Or you can get it in German for about $15. His Paris book is fab too.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr...0de%20Montclos