Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building on the Left Bank. To the residents she is honest, reliable and uncultivated an ideal concierge. But Renée has a secret. Beneath this conventional façade she is passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives....

On a cold, moonlit night in January 1944, Anne-Marie Walters, just 20 years old, parachuted into southwest France to work with the Resistance in preparation for the long-awaited Allied invasion. The daughter of a British father and a French mother...

When ex-blues drummer John Dummer decamps to France to start up as an antiques dealer and live the simple life, he doesn't count on meeting Serge Bastarde. The lovable (if improbably named) rogue and brocanteur offers to teach John...

Making use of overlooked and new material from over thirty archives in half a dozen countries, D-Day is the most vivid and well-researched account yet of the battle of Normandy. As with Stalingrad and Berlin, Antony Beevor's gripping narrative conveys the true experience of war...

In The Secret Life of France Lucy leads us on a journey through the French moral maze and examines French attitudes to a range of subjects from marriage and adultery to work and race relations. By taking apart the clichés she helps us gain a better understanding of this nearest and most alien of...

Though happy enough with his lot, Michael Simkins has never truly shaken the nagging doubt - helpfully upheld by his partner Julia - that he somehow lacks worldly sophistication. Armed only with 50 Useful French Phrases he embarks on an odyssey that takes him from Manche to the Riviera...

Sam and Bud were ordinary first-time home buyers in their early thirties. Their intention, in moving to France, was to create a simple life in a place where they could spend time with their children. The home they actually bought was a 17th century chateau...

Top wine critic and author, Monty Waldin, has decided to put his money where his opinionated mouth is and pack it all in to make wine biodynamically in rural France. He has just over a year to turn 5.4 acres into top selling organic wine. Renovating an old cabin on his vineyard so he can babysit his vines...

Tired of Provence in books, cuisine, and tablecloths? Exhausted from your armchair travels to Paris? Despairing of ever finding a place that speaks to you beyond reason? You are ripe for a journey to Brittany, where author Mark Greenside...

Inspired by breathtaking views and romantic dreams of finding love in the mountains, Tony Hawks impulsively buys a house in the French Pyrenees. Here, he plans to finally fulfil his childhood fantasy of mastering the piano...

One day in late summer, Michael Wright gave up his comfortable South London existence and, with only his long-suffering cat for company, set out to begin a new life. His destination was 'La Folie', a dilapidated 15th century farmhouse in need of love...

Idly leafing through the Sunday supplements, Trevor Danby spotted an advertisement for what seemed like implausibly cheap properties in the Charente region of France. Intrigued, but without any intention to buy, he contacted the agents and set off...

Living the good life in the Blue Mountains in Australia with her husband, four grown-up children and four (and counting) grandchildren, Mary Moody's life was full. Like many women of her generation, caught up with...

The author moved to France with his wife and children to study French. The job he found to pay for his studies, 'taking on' and selling French property, has taken him behind the scenes of French rural life...

Selling French Dreams-tales of property, family and France, this is the sequel to A Normandy Tapestry, and deals with the author's time working as an estate agent in Normandy and Brittany. This book is probably the most important non-technical book on French property ever written, and certainly one of the most entertaining.

This work is a charming and informative account of renovating a property in France. When you fall in love common sense flies out of the window. This is how it was for David and Doris Johnson when they found a down-at-heel mini château in the heartland of France.

A dilapidated, rat-infested stone barn set amidst thirteen acres of overgrown woodland and unkempt pasture might not be many people's vision of a potential dream home. But for English couple Richard and his wife Al, the cavernous, oak-beamed building in a sleepy hamlet of the Limousin region of France is perfect.

Deep in the Limousin countryside, Richard Wiles bought his dream home. But little did he expect to be living full time in the dilapidated farmhouse while struggling to finish the conversion during the insect plagues of summer and the harsh blizzards of winter.