YEAR IN PROVENCE, A(ISBN=9780394572307)

I really loved this book. Having spent several seasons in the backcountry of Provence myself, I found myself laughing in recognition of the Provencal explanation, for example, of an unusually cold winter: it was simply that the cold had all slipped down from Russia because the land had flattened between there and Provence. Then the raucous rebuilding of their house, and their plumbing, and the middle-aged plumber himself, who plays the clarinet at home, and will party of an evening, whirling his wife around the dance floor until six in the morning. The wonderful local meals Mayle describes, with pates and hams and mammoth stews, and olives, and sausages, and slabs of country bread to wipe up the sauce while cleaning the plates for the next course. It takes the friendly eye and ear of a sympathetic foreigner to penetrate and then bring alive the unique and endearing culture that is Provence. This book will give you many a chuckle when you know the country, and will certainly prepare you to enjoy it if you don't. -- Review

A funny--and often hilarious--month-by-month account of the charms and frustrations of moving into an old French farmhouse in Provence and adapting to a very different way of life.

Peter Mayle spent fifteen years in the advertising business, first as a copywriter and then as a reluctant executive, before escaping Madison Avenue in 1975 to write books. His work has been translated into seventeen languages, and he has contributed to the London Sunday Times, the Financial Times, and the Independent, as well as Gentlemen's Quarterly and Esquire. A Year in Provence, which has just been published in England, won the British Book Awards "Best Travel Book of the Year." He and his wife live in Provence.