Jean Giono

Perhaps no other of his novels better reveals Giono's perfect balance between lyricism and narrative, description and characterization, the epic and the particular, than The Horseman on the Roof. This novel, which Giono began writing in 1934 and which was published in 1951, expanded and solidified his reputation as one of Europe's most important writers. This is a novel of adventure, a roman courtois, that tells the story of Angelo, a nobleman who...

Discover this beloved masterpiece of nature writing that is a hymn to creation and the power of the individual to do their bit to change the world for the better.In 1910, while hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzéard sorting and then planting hundreds of acorns as he walks through the wilderness.Ten years later, after...

When the village baker's wife runs off with a handsome young shepherd, the whole town suffers because the baker is too depressed to bake.