Julian More's sentimental journey is a brilliantly entertaining evocation of the best - and worst - of France. Not only a remembrance of things past - his search for the spirit of Stare and Greco in the cafes and jazz clubs of late-forties St-Germanin-des-Pres; a lucky breakdown on the old N7 which landed him in a Valence gastronomic paradise; family life and other games in and around St Tropez in the sixties - it also paints a vivid picture of things present: learning to live with the bloody-mindedness of Parisians when he finally bought a tiny apartment in Montparnasse; the subterranean splendours of the Channel Tunnel; the magic of his tumbledown farmhouse in the Midi near the Mont Ventoux. Always intrigued by the mystery that is France, More goes to Burgundy in search of a lost village and finds the Romantic poet Lamartine's chateau, to the Loire Valley and the tragic-comedy of French country life, and to the Nice of crime in low and high places. He captures the luminous beauty of the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany, and gives a hilarious account of his honeymoon there, poisoned by shellfish. Wherever More travels, he recounts his France with a sharp wit and much affection for the country he has made his home for seventeen years.