The most dramatic shift in society and culture is the post-war, post-colonial "transformation of France from rural to urban" - the ending of a traditional, still Catholic-based society in "a choreography of affluence": consumerism, in other words, happening in the context of a multicultural, globally porous environment which France is doing its best to accommodate. This marvellous book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand why the survival of the French republic is more than one country's concern.

That being said, I wish we saw more of Marco and Rose from the beginning. I just love a good uptight, reserved MMC. Bonus points because he’s an art history professor. There wasn’t much chemistry nor tension between the two of them, but if the plot were indeed changed so that their relationship was a centric narrative, there would’ve been plenty. How many times can a person loose keys or phones in a three week period, according to this once a week on average. How many times will a woman not use her good sense to figure a way out of said predicament but rather phone it in, again three times on average. And for good measure most of those phone calls will be to a smarmy con man named KID. And Rose is too stupid to notice he’s a con. But the signs were slapping her in the face constantly.In this book, he describes a year on his farm, the birdsong, the wildlife, the crops, the villagers and some of the nuances of French culture, all in his beguiling, poetic style.

Lewis-Stempel is a farmer of mediaeval heritage, with his family owning the same land for 700 years. But he has bought a house in the Charente region of France. This house comes with a potager, various farm buildings, and other accoutrements of a house built in rural France during the Belle Époque. The book recounts a year in his life: January-December.He has moved with his family, dogs, and various animals. The aim is to reconnect with nature, to farm for the person rather than for money, and to become at least 50% self-sufficient by the end of the year. Kedward is careful, however, to indicate the failures and hypocrisies of this position, showing how many can be excluded from the notion of égalité - including women, unable to vote until 1945, and immigrant workers living in appalling suburban shanty towns in the 60s. The rituals of rural France, whether queuing for a baguette or sipping a noisette (espresso with a ‘nut’ of milk) while watching the world go by, are effective barriers to the rush of modern times. Somehow, in France, at least outside of Paris, Marseille and Lyon, there is still time. Time to be. Time to do nothing at all. Sometimes rural France is older still. While we were house-hunting and renting the mill in the hedged bocage of northern Deux-Sevres the birdsong was of medieval intensity. Here, in our corner of woods and arable fields in eastern Charente-Maritime, we are at Renaissance level.

A number of English-language books about French life and culture incorporate c’est la vie in their titles, such as the 2017 self-help book C’est La Vie: The French Art of Letting Go. John Lewis-Stempel has permanently moved to France and become a self-sufficient farmer in the Charente region, living in extremely rural France or “la France Profonde”. As for Rose’s character, I’m a little conflicted. As the oldest Zadeh sister, she’s a pathological people pleaser. I empathized with her, but there were many times when enough was enough. She didn’t stand up for herself until the very end of the novel and it made the pacing drag out too long only to feel rushed at the end. She let everyone walk all over her, and yes, I say let because, from her inner dialogue, it’s clear that this is a conscious decision. She believes that defending herself will ruffle too many feathers. Lewis-Stempel’s best book in an age; my favourite, certainly, since Meadowland. I’m featuring it in a summer post because, like Peter Mayle’s Provence series, it’s ideal for armchair travelling. Especially with the heat waves that have swept Europe this summer, I’m much happier reading about France or Italy than being there. The author has written much about his Herefordshire haunts, but he’s now relocated permanently to southwest France (La Roche, in the Charente). He proudly calls himself a peasant farmer, growing what he can and bartering for much of the rest. La Vie chronicles a year in his quest to become self-sufficient. It opens one January and continues through the December, an occasional diary with recipes. The rise and fall of the communists, the parti des fusillés, makes up one of the most interesting threads, along with the fortunes of the left in general. Kedward is sympathetic to the left's cause, while the right (most of it on the left side of Tony Blair) fares less well. Giscard d'Estaing's attempt at meeting the left in the centre draws Kedward's admiration, however, while a kind of subliminal despair is reserved for the anti-semitic extremism of the Front National's predecessors - groups such as Action Française or the Croix-de-Feu in the 30s, which made Vichy possible and thus the zealous deportation of more than 75,000 Jews to near-certain death.British nature writer John Lewis-Stempel is a man who takes birdsong seriously. In the Preface to this book, he highlights the song of nightingales as a reason to relocate to rural France. As a sort of Afterward, he compiles a list of all of the birds see on his own patch at La Roche in the Charente region. Throughout the novel, he notes which birds are singing; and just occasionally, those brief times in the annual calendar when there is seemingly no birdsong at all. It reminded me all over again of why I threw up everything for the magic of La Belle France' Carol Drinkwater, author of The Olive Farm I loved the plot of this book, although it did feel a little long when listening to it. Again, that could just be because of my dwindling attention span, but while I did enjoy the art heist aspect, it didn’t seem necessary. The story would’ve been better rounded out if our protagonist’s relationship with Marco, a childhood acquaintance, was the core plot point. Kid, Rose’s Paris fling, could’ve still been included in the story, but rather as another American turned Parisian simply guiding her throughout the city. It would’ve kept the jealousy trope that I, as an angst lover, always root for, relevant and balanced. In the grand scheme of it all, even when we learn about the details behind the great Parisian art heist, it seemed very anticlimactic. The consequence of it all just seemed very unrealistic.