French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France Book

It's hard to know what to say about this little 200 page book that might make you want to read it. I feel like there are two groups of people in relation to this book: those who will find it a charming diversion, and those who will find it a boring waste of time. You can probably figure out which group you belong to just by knowing a bit of what the book is about.

This book is a conversationally-written memoir about an American who moves to a small town in the south of France for a year, and keeps a garden while he is there. You get tiny glimpses into the lives of the villagers, some descriptions of the town and the weather, and lots of thought about gardens, gardening, and earth. (Earth as in soil, not as in the planet.) Meditations on the act of planting and nurturing vegetables and herbs, followed by the satisfaction of harvesting the fruits of your labor. Descriptions of exactly what it took to carve a small garden into a forgotten corner of a vineyard - hauling water, building steps, breaking up the soil, harvesting bamboo for tomato stakes.

It's a narrow topic. If nothing about that previous paragraph sounds the slightest bit interesting to you, avoid this book. But if you'd like to daydream, just a bit, about moving to a foreign country and trying to make a deep connection with the people and the land there, even if you're not really a gardener, then maybe give it a try. It's quite short, and offers a view of France that I haven't gotten from other books. It's not a book that will dramatically alter my life or views, but it was a nice way to spend a portion of my vacation.