Some books are like a vacation.   Open the covers, look at the first paragraph and you’re on your way to some exotic location, away from the everyday grind. You can go hunting with Hemingway, rafting with Twain or sailing with Thor Heyerdahl.  Those vacations are wonderful, but come along with me to the South of France.  You won’t have to pack a bag or learn the language but you must bring along your sense of humor.   It’s required when you check in to The Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle

Peter Mayle made enough wealth and fame in advertising to retire early to a farmhouse in France.  Then he became internationally rich and famous writing about his retired life.   The Hotel Pastis is a novel but there’s enough about advertising and the South of France there to suggest it’s a thinly disguised memoir with just enough fiction in it to keep people from suing.   Truth or libel, the book is a treat.

The hero, Simon Shaw, is a man in need of an interest.  His work life doesn’t fascinate him any more: the ad agency he helped build is so successful that all he does is butter up clients, cash the checks and argue with his partners.  His personal life is equally boring: the second ex-wife just left taking her wardrobe, her mean mind and a lawyer’s ransom of money but leaving a blah, empty home.  Under orders to cheer up, Simon takes a driving holiday through the South of France. Then a car accident strands him in one of those sunny villages that tourists dream about: a place away from the world; a place where the day can be savored with the food and wine; a place to start life over again.

There is a sub-plot involving bicycles and a bank heist but the best parts of The Hotel Pastis are the people in Simon’s world.  There’s Jordan, Simon’s dyed-in-tweed British partner who lives to fulfill every cliche of English Life, and Zeigler, Jordan’s American counterpart. There’s Ernest, Simon’s  majordomo in England and a surprising aide-de-camp in France.   Luckily for Simon, there’s also Nicole Bouvier, the blonde who captures his interest and gives him the idea for a project: the Hotel Pastis.

No, this isn’t great literature but that’s not why I go back to this book.  “Great literature” doesn’t always seem that great when it’s dark and cold outside.  Instead, I’ll pick up The Hotel Pastis and watch sunlight bounce off of the cover.  The heat of Provence will radiate from the pages and take the chill out of this room.  A soft breeze will flow with the chapter and I’ll hear the irresistible chink of ice in a pitcher and the click of balls on a boules court.  I can smell the fields of lavender already.  Y’all enjoy your cold, hard December.  I’m taking the next book to France.