NEW paperback

A Year in ProvenceToujours Provence Box Set [Paperback] Peter Mayle

Amazoncom Review: Who hasnt dreamed, on a mundane Monday or frowzy Friday, of chucking it all in and packing off to the south of France? Provenal cookbooks and guidebooks entice with provocatively fresh salads and azure skies, but is it really all CtesduRhne and fleurdelis? Author Peter Mayle answers that question with wit, warmth, and wicked candor in A Year in Provence, the chronicle of his own foray into Provenal domesticity Beginning, appropriately enough, on New Years Day with a divine luncheon in a quaint restaurant, Mayle sets the scene and pits his British sensibilities against it We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers, he writes, looked with an addicts longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window He describes in loving detail the charming, 200yearold farmhouse at the base of the Lubron Mountains, its thick stone walls and welltended vines, its wine cave and wells, its shade trees and swimming poolits lack of central heating Indeed, not 10 pages into the book, reality comes crashing into conflict with the idyll when the Mistral, that frigid wind that ravages the Rhne valley in winter, cracks the pipes, rips tiles from the roof, and tears a window from its hinges And thats just January In prose that skips along lightly, Mayle records the highlights of each month, from the aberration of snow in February and the algaefilled swimming pool of March through the tourist invasions and unpredictable renovations of the summer months to a quiet Christmas alone Throughout the book, he paints colorful portraits of his neighbors, the Provenaux grocers and butchers and farmers who amuse, confuse, and befuddle him at every turn A Year in Provence is part memoir, part homeowners manual, part travelogue, and all charming fun LA Smith