A sourcebook on Provence by the writer who has made the region his own. Though organized from A to Z, this is hardly a conventional work of reference. It is rather a selection of those aspects of Provence that Peter Mayle in almost twenty years there has found to be the most interesting, curious, delicious, or downright fun. In more than 170 wide-ranging entries he writes about architecture, expatriates, Aix-en-Provence, the Provençal character, legends, lavender, linguistic oddities, the museum of the French Foreign Legion, the museum of the corkscrew, the origins of "La Marseillaise," and a bawdy folklore character named Fanny. 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. The accompanying artwork includes curiosities Mayle has gathered over the years--matchbooks, drawings, century-old ads, photos, tourist brochures, maps.--From publisher description.