In the original dustsheet. Navy cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

A grumpy book. While Mayle’s Provence books were admittedly boring, they were, if such a thing is possible, pleasantly bland and boring. One felt mildly envious of his enjoyable life, and of the way he turned plumbing stories into cash. But there is nothing pleasant about the Hotel Pastis. There is a condom scene which harks back to the glory days of Mayle’s book about a talking penis, Wicked Willie; the local village is called Brassiere-les-deux-Eglises.