Provence A-Z

The ultimate “dictionary” for lovers of Provence: Peter Mayle's personal selection of the foods, customs and words he finds most fascinating, curious, delicious, or just plain fun.

Though organized from A to Z, this is hardly a conventional work of reference. In more than 170 entries, Peter Mayle—bestselling author of A Year in Provence—writes about subjects as wide-ranging as architecture and zingue-zingue-zoun (in the local patois, a word meant to describe the sound of a violin). And, of course, he writes about food and drink: vin rosé, truffles, olives, melons, bouillabaisse, the cheese that killed a Roman emperor, even a cure for indigestion.

Provence A-Z is a delight for Peter Mayle's ever-growing audience and the perfect complement to any guidebook on Provence, or, for that matter, France.

From the writer who made Provence his own, a wonderfully engaging dictionary of the most fascinating aspects of Provence. This entertaining and informative audiobook is the perfect compliment to any guidebook to France. In over 200 entries Peter Mayle muses on subjects as diverse as architecture, expatriates, the Provencal character, legends, lavender, local climate, church organs, linguistic oddities, and the origins of the Marseilles. Of course there is a strong emphasis on food as well. Mayle takes listeners to both familiar destinations as well as to places they would never otherwise find, and introduces them to fascinating local characters along the way. These are alphabetical entries from A to Z, and convey the joy of discovery of Provence s most fascinating, curious, and delicious attractions.

Publishers Weekly

The author of several books set in Provence, including the now classic travel tome A Year in Provence and a more recent novel, A Good Year, Mayle has once again trapped the sunshine, the wind and the very lavender-laden air of the southeastern French countryside in his prose. The reference-desk title is appropriate if the desk in reference is that of a librarian at your favorite getaway inn in Aix or Marseille. This anecdotal encyclopedia may have been written expressly for discovery on the shelf of a rented mas, "a collection of agricultural buildings joined together," and enjoyed over an afternoon repast of Banon, "armed with a fresh baguette and a bottle of local wine." Mayle is the self-appointed pied piper of Provence for Anglophone Francophiles everywhere, and these entries, from "Accent" to "Zingue-Zingue-Zoun," display the same conversational style his fans have come to expect. He includes information about lesser-known sights like the museum of the Foreign Legion and local food like bouillabaisse, but the charm of the book is in unexpected factual gems like "the male goat can copulate up to forty times a day" found in an otherwise straightforward entry about ch vre. Mayle writes beautifully of the seasons Automne, t , Hiver and Printemps which he shares as his own personal Provence with the earnestly planning tourist and the dreamy armchair traveler alike. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Peter Mayle is the author of eleven previous books, five of them fiction. He has received the Légion d’Honneur from the French government for his cultural contributions. Mayle has been living in Provence with his wife, Jennie, for twenty years.