Mayle and his wife retire to a small house in Provence, and the ensuing book relates his trials and tribulations as an Englishman in a rural French setting. This is a wonderful book, full of pleasure and amusement. I kept getting ideas for science fiction from this, mainly because Mayle’s descriptions of rural French life showed that humans can be as alien as any extraterrestrials. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to anyone.