Provence – Cannonball Read 17

Inter-Sibling relationships on the National Scale

Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone

May 21, 2022 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

Nancy Goldstone’s Four Queens is the sort of non-fiction I enjoy tucking in to. I travelled last week and wanted a book to read at the airport and on the plane to decompress and scratch the same mental itch as my marathoning Time Team has done (a show which helped me recognize names and places in this book!) and am I ever so glad that I had thought ahead to pack this book as well as Last Night at the Telegraph Club for book club […]

Re-read a Year in Provence instead

Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle

December 30, 2020 by Wanderlustful 2 Comments

Lavender fields, sunshine, good wine, olive oil, roman ruins- my visions of Provence are romantic and idealized, and I have largely Peter Mayle and his novels/memoirs to thank. I first read Mayle’s A Year in Provence in my late teens, after I’d devoured Frances Mayes similar sun-drenched tales of Tuscany and imagined myself as Liv Tyler in Stealing Beauty. I was expecting Hotel Pastis to be a similar story- Mayle buys and renovates an old Provencial hotel!- and was looking forward to some relaxing armchair […]

Books, Paris and books about Paris

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

April 17, 2020 by Wanderlustful Leave a Comment

I am a sucker for books and Paris, and books about Paris, so I had high expectations for this book. Jean Perdu is the lovelorn owner/operator of the Literary Apothecary, a floating book barge on the Seine from which he prescribes books to heal his customers. Perdu has been avoiding reading the ‘Dear John/Jean’ letter that his last lover, Manon, sent him when she left 20 years ago. When he does finally open Manon’s letter, he discovers that she had been trying to say a […]

A lot of Goodreads readers liked this a lot more than I did

September 6, 2015 by Malin Leave a Comment

3.5 stars All Jasmin “Jess” Bianchi has ever wanted to do was make perfumes, like her father. The brain-child behind the massively popular Spoiled Brat, she has achieved great commercial success, but is everyone assumes that what she intended as an ironic comment on the industry is all she’s capable of. When she inherits a small perfume shop in Provence, in the same year she had to bury her father and the little artisanal perfume company she had started was bought up by the powerful […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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