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Books : A Year in ProvenceIn association with Amazon.comby: Peter Mayle  List Price: $13.00 Amazon.com's Price: $10.40 You Save: $2.60 (20%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 944.920838 EAN: 9780679731146 ISBN: 0679731148 Label: Vintage Manufacturer: Vintage Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 224 Publication Date: June 04, 1991 Publisher: Vintage Release Date: June 04, 1991 Studio: Vintage Sales Rank: 8908 Accessories:
Editorial Review: Product Description: In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days. Amazon.com Review: Who hasn't dreamed, on a mundane Monday or frowzy Friday, of chucking it all in and packing off to the south of France? Provençal cookbooks and guidebooks entice with provocatively fresh salads and azure skies, but is it really all Côtes-du-Rhône 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 Provençal domesticity. Beginning, 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 Lubéron 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 Rhône valley in winter, cracks the pipes, rips tiles from the roof, and tears a window from its hinges. And that's just January. In 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 Provençaux 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 Average Rating:
 Rating:  - A Year of SurprisesThis book provides a very intimate view of the author's experiences during his first year of living in Provence in the southeastern part of France. Most of the experiences represent the every day ones we all go through e.g. hiring someone to do work on our house, meeting neighbors through a party, etc. However, the people in Provence have a decidedly different perspective and character, and thus these ordinary experiences appear strange, fascinating and entertaining. This effect comes in part from ... Read More Rating:  - A Year in ProvenceMayle's vision of Provence is mostly fantasy. It's true, the details of food and weather and habits are accurate, but it rings of 19th century English colonial patriarchy. The French "peasants" are portrayed like happy go lucky children living in a Romanticized garden of Eden uncorrupted by the real world of London and Paris. Mayle is the benevolent Patriarch in contrast to the towns cast of cartoonish personalities (it's no accident this book was adapted to a comedic TV series). If it was a novel ... Read More Rating:  - Part Travelogue; Part Love LetterI'm probably the last person in the world to read this charming book. My interest was stirred by the Russell Crowe film A GOOD YEAR which has been running on the premium channels for the last two months. The movie is heartwarming, witty, and full of sweet charm. Naturally I had to seek out the author of the book from which the movie was adapted. In doing so, I bought all of the other books written by Peter Mayle an ex-patriot Englishman living the life we all want to live in Provence. ... Read More Rating: - Absolutely Delightful & EntertainingI had not heard of this book until I was traveling last week, and a fellow traveler asked me in the Borders at the airport if I knew who had written "A Year in Provence". I did not know, but something in the title peaked my interest, so I googled it on my phone, found the author and read the excerpt on the publisher's site. I fell in love with the descriptions of Le Simiane's cuisine, and had to buy it (which I did as soon as I could find a local Borders). I read it in 2 days - absolutely ... Read More Rating: - Très délicieuxA Year in Provence begins with New Year's lunch and ends with Christmas lunch. Between the two meals is a memorable year full of characters (from eccentric neighbors and affable builders to aged chefs), forays into the countryside, unwelcome visitors, the Mistral, and, of course, gastronomic delights. Without explanation, such as how they can afford it, Peter Mayle describes how he and his nameless wife buy an old farmhouse in the Lubéron, insulated from the greater world and from change by ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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