Provence

In a magnificent and captivating album, Mayle, author of bestsellers on Proven al life and manners (Toujours Provence), teams with British aerial photographer Hawkes to capture the quirks and flavor of Provence, France's lush Mediterranean south. Writing with comic insight and loving familiarity, Mayle takes us to Roman amphitheaters, pristine hilltop towns, the bustling port of Marseille-bastion of bouillabaisse and the French mafia-and the flat, swampy Camargue, home to cowboys, wild horses, flamingoes and lethal mosquitoes. He sprinkles his narrative with historical asides as well as the doings of Henry James, Gerard Depardieu and others whose lives have been touched by the region. Hawkes's breathtaking photographs transform the seemingly commonplace into visual feasts of pattern and color. His pictures, themselves works of art, enable us to see why Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso and other painters have been enamored of this region. (Oct.)