This lyrical, witty ode to Provence has become the template for scores of travel essays by Mayle admirers. None of them, however, can match the blend of lighthearted humor and sensuous detail that Mayle offers his readers in A Year in Provence. The chronicle of a former advertiser who undertakes the renovation of a ancient French farmhouse, A Year in Provence introduces readers to a wealth of quirky characters, lucious meals, and innumerable mishaps as the author and his wife settle into the Provenal lifestyle.