# La Vie

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/john-lewis-stempel/la-vie/9781804995815

![La Vie](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/john-lewis-stempel/la-vie_978-18-0499-581-5-25a6adf1.jpg?v=2026-09-24%2002%3A31%3A32)

- Book: [La Vie](https://www.bookquiver.com/john-lewis-stempel/la-vie) ([La Vie.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/john-lewis-stempel/la-vie.md))
- Authors: [John Lewis-Stempel](https://www.bookquiver.com/john-lewis-stempel)
- Publisher: Penguin
- ISBN: 978-18-0499-581-5
- Pages: 208
- Published: 2024-07-04
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

The Charente: roofs of red terracotta tiles, bleached-white walls, windows shuttered against the blaring sun. The baker does his rounds in his battered little white van with a hundred warm baguettes in the back, while a cat picks its way past a Romanesque church, the sound of bells skipping across miles of rolling, glorious countryside. For many years a farmer in England, John Lewis-Stempel yearned once again to live in a landscape where turtle doves purr and nightingales sing, as they did almost everywhere in his childhood. He wanted to be self-sufficient, to make his own wine and learn the secrets of truffle farming. And so, buying an old honey-coloured limestone house with bright blue shutters, the Lewis-Stempels began their new life as peasant farmers. Over that first year, Lewis-Stempel fell in love with the French countryside, from the wild boar that trot past the kitchen window to the glow-worms and citronella candles that flicker in the evening garden. Although it began as a practical enterprise, it quickly became an affair of the heart: of learning to bite the end off the morning baguette; taking two hours for lunch; in short, living the good life - or as the French say, La Vie .