Books I Love: Peter Mayle's Provencal Trilogy

My copies of Peter Mayle's Provencal trilogy 

I love travel memoirs and have quite a number of books in this genre. Peter Mayle's trilogy of his life lived in Provence, France, I acquired and first read in 2000. I am rereading them now because of a renewed interest to travel to France, and moreover, Mayle's storytelling is rather delightful.

I started with the first (of course), A Year in Provence (1989). Mayle and his wife left England to live abroad where they bought a 200 year-old farmhouse in the Luberon Valley. He regales us with the sights, sounds and smells of their year in rural France with lots of wit and great humour. This book won Mayle the British Book Awards' "Best travel book of the year" in 1989.

Toujours Provence (1991), the second book in the trilogy, I had to have a friend (Wan Fong) buy for me when she was holidaying in England because I could not find it in the bookshops here. As with the first (and third) book, we get witty accounts of the gastronomic delights savoured and here, even of  'buying truffles from Monsieur X'.

Mayle wrote his third book after going back to Provence, having left earlier (for the USA) to get away from fans and curious visitors to his rural home. Encore Provence (1999) completes this trilogy on the delights and curiosities of Provencal life.

1. A Year in Provence (1989). Ex Libris CNB 61    2. Toujours Provence (1991). Ex Libris CNB 62
3. Encore Provence (1999). Ex Libris CNB 63