A Year in Provence (1989) by Peter Mayle #ParisInJuly2025 #20BooksofSummer2025

🍷 A Year in Provence became my first entry for #ParisInJuly2025, hosted by Emma @ Word and Peace. It's the first of a series of memoir written by Peter Mayle, an American guy who moved to France with his wife and two dogs in the 1980s. My initial choice had been Toujours Provence (the second book in the series) - planning to read it for A Century of Books project, but unfortunately I couldn't find any available ebook. So, I picked the first book, which was available, and someone has commented that it was slightly better than the second. In the end, I'm quite happy with the book - it was an entertaining read.

🍷 The premise is quite cliché - a foreigner found Provence a charming place, fallen in love with the Francophile life, decided to move in, then struggle to adapt at first, but loved the adventure anyway. There are more than a dozen books similar to this, I believe. And so, it's the narrative that would make one book different from the other. In this case, I loved Mayle's witty and humorous prose, with steady pace, alternating between frustrating and triumphant moments.

🍷 The Mayles chose a small and remote Southern French country called Lubéron as their new homeland. They found a 200-year-old dilapidated stone farmhouse, and bought it. And this book is a yearlong story of their introduction to the new Provençal life. They not only endured the mistral or frosty winter, but also with the fact that living in a farmhouse means never-ending repair works to be done. And with the Provençal laissez faire way of life, it may frustrated town people on their first arrival in Provence, but little by little Peter and his wife got used to it. Mrs. Mayle even came up with a clever way to get the repairmen worked their house faster - a gentle kick it was - and very efficient, and wonderfully hilarious!

🍷 On the whole, it might not be an enlightening book (you'll read many of these kinds), but if you are yourself a Francophile, this would be a charming and delightful book to read. It'd transport you to Provence, And together with the Mayles, you'd experience the charm and beauty of living in a Provençal farmhouse. You'd be imagining harvesting your own grapes, or hunting your own truffles, or cooking your own French cuisine. I loved this book, and enjoyed every page of it. It's rather difficult to convey the nuances I got from this book, but I found a passage that might describe it well:

"And, as for the oil, it is a masterpiece. You’ll see.” Before dinner that night, we tested it, dripping it onto slices of bread that had been rubbed with the flesh of tomatoes. It was like eating sunshine.”

Well, can you imagine what I have felt, and why I think his is a perfect book to read for #ParisInJuly2025, n'est-ce pas?

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Paris in July 2025

hosted by Emma @ Words and Peace

20 Books of Summer 2025
hosted by Annabel and Emma