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Peter Mayle (1939–2018)

Author of A Year in Provence

Includes the names: Mayle, P. Mayle, Peer Mayle, Pater Mayle, Peter Mayle, Питер Мейл

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Peter Mayle was born in Brighton, England on June 14, 1939. He began his career in advertising as a copywriter and rose to the executive ranks, but left advertising in 1975 to write educational books, including a series on sex education for children and young adults. His educational books including Where Did I Come From? and What's Happening to Me? His travel memoir, A Year in Provence, received the British Book Awards' Best Travel Book of the Year in 1990 and was adapted into a television mini-series. His other nonfiction books included Toujours Provence, Encore Provence, Provence A-Z, and French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew. His fiction books included The Marseille Caper, The Corsican Caper, and A Good Year, which was adapted into a 2006 film of the same name starring Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard. Mayle died on January 18, 2018 at the age of 78. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from A Year in Provence… (more)
Disambiguation Notice

This page was formerly split, presumably because the topics written about are very diverse and an assumption was made that they couldn't have been the same author. Works that were previously on #2 had been moved to #1, leaving #2 empty. All the works in the unknowns were related to works in #1, so I unsplit the page.

A Year in Provence 5,404 copies, 109 reviews
Toujours Provence 2,322 copies, 21 reviews
Encore Provence 1,309 copies, 7 reviews
A Good Year 1,149 copies, 27 reviews
Hotel Pastis 1,134 copies, 14 reviews
Chasing Cézanne 890 copies, 16 reviews
Anything Considered 740 copies, 10 reviews
A Dog's Life 737 copies, 16 reviews
The Vintage Caper 646 copies, 42 reviews
Acquired Tastes 588 copies, 7 reviews
The Marseille Caper 327 copies, 22 reviews
Provence A-Z 235 copies, 4 reviews
The Corsican Caper 181 copies, 5 reviews
The Diamond Caper 108 copies, 4 reviews
The Killing of Corporal Kunze 42 copies, 1 review
Why Are We Getting a Divorce? 40 copies, 8 reviews
Baby Taming 20 copies
Will I Go To Heaven? 9 copies, 1 review
Alt har interesse (Author) 1 copy
2004 1 copy
20th century (49) art (43) autobiography (133) biography (154) British (46) children's (35) cooking (59) culture (42) dogs (68) essays (95) Europe (55) expats (40) fiction (1,072) first edition (38) food (447) food writing (34) France (2,053) French (69) gastronomy (40) humor (456) literature (46) Mayle (57) memoir (775) mystery (199) non-fiction (891) novel (140) own (75) paperback (37) Peter Mayle (75) Provence (700) read (161) Roman (38) sex education (37) to-read (375) travel (1,605) travel literature (44) travel writing (90) travelogue (76) unread (70) wine (153)
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Peter Mayle was born in Brighton, England. Following World War II, the family moved to Barbados, where his father served as an employee of the British Colonial Office. Mayle returned to England after leaving school at age 16. His first job in 1957 was as a trainee at Shell Oil's London office. He was more interested in advertising than oil, however, and by 1961 had became a copywriter at Shell's ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather, in New York City. Subsequently, he was hired by Papert Koenig Lois and returned to London to head up the creative team there. When the company had financial troubles in the mid-1960s, Mayle and a colleague bought the London operation. They developed the business and after five years, it was bought by BBDO. He then commuted between the USA and the UK as creative director. By 1974, Mayle had tired of advertising and transatlantic commuting, and quit to write full-time. He started off by writing educational books, including a series on sex education for children and young people. He also wrote, with illustrator Gray Jolliffe, a series of humorous books about the character Wicked Willie. His most significant career move probably was the decision to relocate to Ménerbes, a village in the Luberon region of southern France, in the late 1980s. There his plans to write a novel were overtaken by the events of life as an expatriate in his new environment. They provided the material for his 1989 book A Year in Provence, an international bestseller that became a media phenomenon. Many more books followed, which were translated in more than 20 languages. Mayle also wrote articles for magazines and newspapers. A Year in Provence was adapted into a highly popular British television series in 1993. Mayle had to move to Amagansett on Long Island, New York, to get away from the thousands of fans and sightseers who showed up at his home in Provence. He later returned to France and a home in Vaugines, also in the Luberon.  The French government awarded him the Legion of Honor in 2002, for "coopération et francophonie."
Disambiguation notice
This page was formerly split, presumably because the topics written about are very diverse and an assumption was made that they couldn't have been the same author. Works that were previously on #2 had been moved to #1, leaving #2 empty. All the works in the unknowns were related to works in #1, so I unsplit the page.

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