A Year in Provence

The year began with lunch

So begins Peter Maye's iconic, much-loved account of 'a year in Provence, an irresistible feast of humour and discovered joys of French rural living.

Peter Mayle and his wife did what most of us only imagine doing when they made their long-cherished dream of a life abroad a reality: throwing caution to the wind, they bought a glorious two hundred year-old farmhouse in the Luberon Valley and began a new life.

In a year that begins with a marathon lunch and continues with a host of gastronomic delights, they also survive the unexpected and often hilarious curiosities of rural life.

From mastering the local accent and enduring invasion by bumbling builders, to discovering the finer points of boules and goat-racing, all the earthy pleasures of Provencal life are conjured up in this enchanting portrait.

A British author who lived most of his life in his adopted home of southern France, Peter Mayle will always be best known to his readers for his timeless chronicle of an Englishman abroad, A Year in Provence. For many readers the wellspring of the idyll of the French escape, the book became one of the most successful travel books of all time, selling more than a million copies in the UK and 6 million internationally and spawning a new genre in travel writing. A true Francophile, Mayle continued to live and write about France until his death in 2018, in works including: Encore Provence, The Vintage Caper, Toujours Provence and A Good Year. Speaking to the Guardian Maye said of his adopted home, “It's not that I dislike England, just that I prefer France. As, I suspect, do many English people - if they're honest”.