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Peter Mayle A Year in Provence
Vintage 0679731148 / 9780679731146 PAPERBACK Very Good
0679731148 Amazon nWho hasn't dreamed, on a mundane Monday or frowzy Friday, of chucking it all in and packing off to the south of France? Proven?al cookbooks and guidebooks entice with provocatively fresh salads and azure skies, but is it really all C?tes-du-Rh?ne and fleur-de-lis? Author Peter Mayle answers that question with wit, warmth, and wicked candor in A Year in Provence, the chronicle of his own foray into Proven?al domesticity. n nBeginning, appropriately enough, on New Year's 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 addict's 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, 200-year-old farmhouse at the base of the Lub?ron Mountains, its thick stone walls and well-tended vines, its wine cave and wells, its shade trees and swimming pool--its 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 Rh?ne valley in winter, cracks the pipes, rips tiles from the roof, and tears a window from its hinges. And that's just January. n nIn prose that skips along lightly, Mayle records the highlights of each month, from the aberration of snow in February and the algae-filled 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 Proven?aux grocers and butchers and farmers who amuse, confuse, and befuddle him at every turn. A Year in Provence is part memoir, part homeowner's manual, part travelogue, and all charming fun. --L.A. Smith n nFrom Publishers Weekly nAn account of the author's first frustrating but enlightening year in Provence opens with a memorable New Year's lunch and closes with an impromptu Christmas dinner. In nimble prose, Mayle . . . captures the humorous aspects of visits to markets, vineyards and goat races, and hunting for mushrooms, said PW. Author tour. Illustrated. nCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price:
6.00 EUR
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Peter Mayle Encore Provence
Penguin Books Ltd 014029208X / 9780140292084 PAPERBACK Fine
014029208X Amazon.co.uk Review nPoor Peter Mayle and his wife tried to live other places, but after four years away from Provence--they'd settled into a house outside East Hampton, Long Island--they realised they were hopelessly homesick. They missed the smell of thyme in the fields and the Sunday morning markets. They missed the slower pace. Mostly, they missed the small moments that make up the texture of daily life in Provence--eating, of course; a conversation on a street corner; an impromptu game of boules. n nHappily, the Mayles knew when it was time to go home. Encore Provence resonates not only with the acute perspective of someone who is supremely glad to be back on French turf, but also with the wit and relief of a refugee who has a solid American yardstick by which to measure the good life. The Mayles had tried valiantly to adapt to American culture: they learned about California wines, they shopped by mail, they took vitamins, they tried to watch television, they attempted to watch their cholesterol; there was even a period when they tried to be good citizens and drink eight glasses of water a day. n nCan the author of A Year in Provence andToujours Provence possibly have anything more to say about the sunny south of France? Yes, especially when he's chronicling his newfound dual roles as an expert in all things American (we are in some way considered responsible for the spread of American tribal customs, he writes, everything from le fast-food to les casquettes de baseball, which have begun to appear on previously bare French heads) and as a defender of all things Provencal. n nMayle sounds most defensive in a chapter devoted to former New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl, who penned a Times piece chronicling a bad vacation in Provence and then wrote off the entire region, concluding that she'd been dreaming of a Provence that never existed. For Mayle, that Provence is clearly alive and well, if--as he aptly demonstrates in a lighthanded chapter entitled, Eight Ways to Spend a Summer's Afternoon (pretending to read, planning your own chateau)--you're in the right state of mind to savour it. --Kimberly Brown --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Price:
6.05 EUR
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