A YEAR IN PROVENCE by Peter Mayle ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wish I could go back to the eighties and do exactly what Peter Mayle did—jump headfirst into the adventure of rural European living and write about the hijinks that come from it. Even thirty some years after the fact, there’s something almost instinctive about the notion. Sadly, I’m only the millionth person to discover this desire, and I’m sure the well went dry decades ago. Reading this book, I’ve no doubt how it happened. Mayle sold us all a downright cozy dream.

It’s simple. Set up shop in a beautiful place where the people care more about being fed and fed well than almost anything else. Open yourself and your home to whoever comes along, be it contractors or farmers or tourists or neighbors, and let life happen. In a world of constant worry and fear about tomorrow when most of us are still exhausted from today, I can’t decide whether it’s the Provençal lifestyle or the Eighties that sounds more appealing. But I know that Mayle does an effortless job of making his first year living in Provence feel like an escape.

It’s toted as a travel novel, but really it’s more of a change your scenery novel. Find a home in the unfamiliar and see what it serves you for supper. You’ll find the inevitable challenges almost always reveal themselves as something grander in the end, and that you’re a better (if not more interesting) person because of it.

His writing is friendly and witty, and you’ll find twelve months go by fast. You may also find that you suddenly have an urge to own a vineyard and to learn a language you should’ve learned a long time ago. For many of us, it’s only a matter of time.