Four Seasons in a Day: Travel, Transitions and Letting Go of the Place We Call Home

by Deborah L Jacobs

Overview

Alternately humorous and poignant, this inspiring memoir chronicles the author's misadventures as she and her husband cook in quirky kitchens, struggle to speak French and shop like locals in outdoor markets. With candor and optimism, Deborah Jacobs transports readers from the grape harvest in the Loire Valley to an exuberant chile pepper festival in Basque Country and, ultimately, to Paris, where she witnesses history in the making. En route, she does the pintxo bar crawl in San Sebastián, Spain, develops an affinity for sheep’s milk cheese and cultivates new friendships.

Four Seasons in a Day, an expression used to describe the changeable weather in the Pyrenees, also captures the author’s extreme resilience. Her grit and determination in the face of every obstacle give us the courage to chart our own course, carve out a new life and embrace the unexpected.

Those who are thinking of using their home to subsidize foreign travel will find several chapters showing how to do that. Others will whet the reader s appetite to explore the places Jacobs visited. Anyone who has ever fantasized about taking a break from the rat race will want to follow the thread in the style of the 2009 film Julie & Julia of how this life-transforming journey became a book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780983697053
Publisher:	DJWorking Unlimited Inc.
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	3 MB

Table of Contents

Preface

Part One: Charting a Course

Chapter 1. Exit Plan

Chapter 2. Leaving Home

Part Two: The Allure of the Loire

Chapter 3. The Winemaker's Cottage

Chapter 4. Two Faces of Eden

Chapter 5. The House on rue Sainte

Chapter 6. Cuisine Volante

Chapter 7. Writer in Residence

Chapter 8. Houseguests

Chapter 9. Saumur Sketches

Chapter 10. Cheese Impresario

Chapter 11. Fruit of the Vine

Chapter 12. Life as a Locataire

Chapter 13. Second Thoughts

Part Three: The Bounty of Basque Country

Chapter 14. The Shipbuilder's Mansion

Chapter 15. Mountains and Ocean

Chapter 16. Let There Be Light!

Chapter 17. Signposts

Chapter 18. Camino Fever

Chapter 19. Homestay

Chapter 20. Saturday Haul

Chapter 21. French Coiffure

Chapter 22. Unacquired Skills

Chapter 23. Cake Culture

Chapter 24. Culinary Boundaries

Chapter 25. From a Distance

Chapter 26. Border Crossings

Chapter 27. The Seduction of Pintxos

Chapter 28. Pharmacie French

Chapter 29. Autumn Roses

Chapter 30. The Last Supper

Part Four: Paris Past, Present, Perfect

Chapter 31. Countryside in the City

Chapter 32. From Terroir to Terreur

Chapter 33. Mourning, Public and Private

Chapter 34. Acts of Deviance

Chapter 35. Minotaur Moving His House

Part Five: Reentry and Reinvention

Chapter 36. "Semi-colon" and Exclamation Point

Chapter 37. How Much to Share -- And With Whom?

Chapter 38. In Guests We Trust

Chapter 39. Turning the Page

Further Reading

Index

Editorial Reviews

05/15/2017
Jacobs, a former editor at Forbes, recounts the story of a three-month trip to France, using short-term rental services to lease her three-story Brooklyn town house and rent homes in four different regions of France. Having just seen her son off to college, Jacobs planned the trip as a way to mark the beginning of the next chapter of her life. She and her husband arrive at their first rental in the Loire Valley only to encounter the first of many frustrations and disappointments with their lodgings at a small, untidy cottage owned by a winemaker. They flee to a new rental, finding only moderately better conditions. As the journey (and lodgings) gradually improve, the narrative shifts toward a more traditional travelogue with details about French culture and history—including Jacobs’s recounting of a spirited exchange with the village cheese monger and anecdotes from Ernest Hemingway’s time in France. Ultimately, however, the book’s narrative mainstay—Jacobs’s experiences with short-term rental services—is overridden by frequent, detailed complaints. There is a great deal to appreciate in Jacobs’s account, but what’s missing is essential: a sense of the author’s growth—and growing self-awareness—throughout her journey. (BookLife)

Publishers Weekly

"Swiftly paced, well plotted, and full of vivid descriptions. . .Readers of travel literature will have plenty of reasons to keep turning pages." --The BookLife Prize

If you've ever dreamed about living abroad, renting out your home or turning your life upside down, you'll enjoy Four Seasons in a Day. Deborah Jacobs writes about doing all three and does it with wit and wisdom. --Richard Eisenberg, Managing Editor, Nextavenue.org

From the Publisher