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TheLuberon.com’s recommended books and films to do with the Luberon and Provence. This page is for UK users, if you live in the USA, please go to the USA shop.

Peter Mayle

If you don’t know Peter Mayle’s books, you should read at least the first one, A Year in Provence. It was written when Mayle lived just outside Menerbes and is a warm and charming account of an English couple’s first year living there and renovating their farmhouse. It also serves as a good guide to the Luberon’s attractions, markets and restaurants. There are two sequels, Toujours Provence and Encore Provence. Also, the BBC made a 6-part TV series of A Year in Provence, all shot in the Luberon, and available on DVD.

A Year in Provence

Toujours Provence

Encore Provence

A Year in Provence (DVD)

A Good Year
(the book)

The one Peter Mayle book to make it to Hollywood is his novel

A Good Year, which was made into a movie by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe as a city trader who inherits a winery in the Luberon – actually Chateau la Canorgue in Bonnieux. If you have been to the Luberon you will recognise many of the villages and locations where it was filmed, and if you have not been yet, it will make you want to come.

A Good Year
(the movie)

Recommended Provence guide books

I particularly like the Eyewitness Guides for their rich pictorial content. With excellent photography, 3-D mapping, and cutaway illustrations, they show you what the other guides can only tell you about…

…And if you just want to jump straight to the best bits, there is the Top 10 guide from the same publisher, with Top 10 lists of everything to see in Provence.

Three reliable guidebooks are Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and my favourite, the Cadogan Guide, which tends to be more thoughtful and analytical than the others.

More specialised Provence guides: one for the best drives around Provence, and one specifically on the markets of Provence.

Lonely Planet –
Road Trips

Markets of Provence

Provence hiking guides

Walking in Provence – West
English-language guide. 15 hikes in the Luberon along with a nature-spotting guide.

Luberon : 20 Belles Balades
French-language guide. 20 featured walks around the Luberon with maps, and accompanying app.

Le Parc naturel régional du Luberon à pied
French-language guide. 31 Luberon walks with route descriptions and accompanying maps.

Provence Cookery Books

Cooking in Provence
Alex Mackay shares his passion for the relaxed, rural lifestyle and simple cooking of Provence.

The Provence Cookbook
Patricia Wells shares her favourite recipes as well guides to markets, suppliers and vineyards in Provence.

A Small Cheese in Provence
A book dedicated to cooking with goat cheese, which predominates in Provence.

The art of Provence

Provence Sketchbook
Provence through the eye of the watercolourist, exploring the landscapes and the wealth of historical architecture of the region.

Postcard from Provence
Julian Merrow-Smith is a Luberon local who does a painting a day: this beautiful book takes you through the seasons in Provence.

Coffee-table books

The Most Beautiful Villages of Provence
A photographic celebration of the most beautiful villages of Provence, from the mountains of Luberon to the perched villages of the Alpes-Maritimes.

Provence Food & Wine:
The Art of Living
More than a recipe book, more than a coffee-table book, a regional guide to Provence, its food and wine, with beautiful photography, local stories and easy recipes.

Living in Provence
Bringing together the region’s most remarkable interiors, classical and contemporary, this book paints a gorgeous picture of Provencal living, seen from the inside.

Provence high-brow selection

Provence
Ford Madox Ford spent his last years near Toulon. In “Provence” (1935), he explores both the place and the idea of it: ‘not a country nor the home of a race, but a frame of mind’.

Caesar’s Vast Ghost
The author Lawrence Durrell lived in Provence for 30 years, his last book is a homage to the land he loved: part travelogue, part writer’s notebook, part autobiography.

Luminous Debris
An exploration of the landscapes of Provence and the Languedoc, focusing on a particular place or artifact and musing on the meaning of things. Not for the faint-hearted.

The Fly-Truffler
Most unusual story of a truffle-loving linguist’s romance with the spirit of his dead wife. Lyrical, poetic, and evocative of the Luberon landscapes it is set in. The author lived here for many years.

Seeking Provence
Unearthing a Provence beyond the idea of a holiday home for the summer, this book explores the cultural idiosyncrasies and deeply anchored heritage of this Mediterranean land.

Old Provence
First published in 1905, Old Provence provides a remarkable insight not only into the area’s history and architecture, but also its literary and cultural significance, from the ancients to the turbulent middle ages.

A Cultural History
Through its architecture, literature, and popular culture, this book celebrates the identity of the region, evoking the light and landscapes that have attracted generations of painters and writers.

Two Towns in Provence
Two Towns in Provence brings together M.F.K. Fisher’s unforgettable portraits of Aix-en-Provence and Marseille, which she describes as “my picture, my map, of a place and therefore of myself.”

Books by people who moved to Provence (and are not Peter Mayle)

Perfume from Provence
Charming account of an English couple’s life in a Provence village, filled with sights and scents, builders, village fetes, quirky locals – like Peter Mayle but from the 1930s.

Village in the Vaucluse
In the 1950s the author lived for a year in the then-isolated village of Roussillon, this is a study of life in provincial France with interesting anecdotes.

A Farmhouse in Provence
What happens when a Vogue travel editor marries a Frenchman and buys a ruined farmhouse and vineyard near Avignon? Pretty much this…

The Luberon Garden
A British landscape gardener recounts amusing anecdotes of life and work in the Luberon through the prism of garden projects and the clients he worked for.

Have you thought about a Kindle?

Rather than weigh your luggage down with books for your holiday, you could get a Kindle, an electronic book reader that can wirelessly download and store thousands of books, as welll as your usual newspapers or magazines. There are over 4 million books and publications to choose from on Amazon

Kindle
The basic model with WiFi.

Kindle Paperwhite
The best-selling Kindle, with high-resolution screen and built-in light so you can read at night.

Kindle Oasis
New, top of the range: lighter, brighter, thinner, longer battery life, and the cover charges the device.

Movies based on the books of Marcel Pagnol

Marcel Pagnol was a writer and film-maker absolutely synonymous with Provence. When something funny and typically Provencal happens here the locals say “C’est du Pagnol!

Jean De Florette / Manon Des Sources Double Pack
Superb films on every level: acting (the cream of French actors), storyline, cinematography (Provence at its best), even the music is outstanding. They are really two halves of one film – here they are together on DVD. (Manon des Sources is also known as Manon of the Springs).

La Gloire de Mon Père & Le Château de Ma Mère
Two magical, moving films based on the memoirs of the legendary Provencal writer and director Marcel Pagnol. Heavily imbued with the atmosphere of summers in Provence and the wonder of growing up.

Movies shot in the Luberon region of Provence

A Good Year [DVD]
Russell Crowe comedy based on Peter Mayle’s best-selling novel about a banker who relocates to Provence when he inherits a vineyard. Beautiful Luberon locations ensue.

The Horseman On The Roof [DVD]
A historical epic with heaving bosoms, thundering horses, spicy swordfights, and glorious cinematography, including the rooftops of Cucuron.