Product Description

After a long career as a jet-setting journalist, Derek Lambert decided to settle with his family in a white "casita", on Spain's Mediterranean Costa Blanca. Lambert introduces us to the "real" Spain - a nation of passionate and often contradictory people - as he adapts to his new found home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #516477 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 258 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Anyone yearning for a house in the country--another country--will be reassured it can be done with Derek Lambert's engaging tale of his new life in Spain. Reassured, yet likely unconvinced that a rundown property with no running water, access or much of a roof is anybody's idea of a holiday home. That's just the point of Lambert's book: his goal was a life, not a get-away. "In the fading light, the house looked more apologetic than prepossessing. And yet it beckoned as though it contained small mysteries that might one day become familiar to us", he says as he scrambles over a stone fence to peer into the window of the house in a remote region of Andalusia. Indeed, the mysteries of plumbing, builders and a river with no bridge--and how one pays for such things--unfold slowly and then pick up speed and character as the story progresses.

This book has more of a sense of plot than many of this genre, leading to the decision whether to stay or leave, one familiar to anyone who has decided to live abroad. Lambert does not have the writing style that Frances Mayes brings to Under the Tuscan Sun nor the consistent humour of his Andalusia neighbour Chris Stewart in Driving over Lemons. However, he offers an important sense that he and his family are willing parties to the plot he weaves. That combined with Spanish lessons on the building trades and the ability to shear sheep makes Lambert's book a pleasant guide for setting up not just a house, but a home, in rural Spain. --Kathleen Buckley

From the Publisher
A beautifully jacketed reissue of the bestselling travel memoir about life off-the-tourist-track in Spain

About the Author
The late Derek Lambert was the author of several successful novels. His career as a journalist took him on many adventures around the world, from being shot at in Israel to journeying up the Himalayas in a jeep. He eventually settled in Alicante, Spain, with his wife and son.

Customer Reviews

Valuable Spanish Lessons
I picked up a copy of Derek Lambert's 'Spanish Lessons' without knowing what to expect. I was pleased to find that he'd been candidly honest and that he wasn't just another Brit buying yet another holiday home and wanting nothing to do whatsoever with the real Spain. I live in Andalucia and I don't know any English people here, I was pleased to find my thoughts echoed by Derek's book. He is honest about the problems he faced and is quick to point out why things went wrong, if they went wrong. The joys that he experiences, he continuously shared with the village, and the open-ness, generosity and love of the Spanish people was given back to him and his family.
He lives in a part of Spain that I do not personally know but his writing style conjured up images of orange groves and beautiful scenery with the imposing image of the mountain in the background.
This book is great for someone who lives or who wants to live in Spain. Derek has included some great pearls of wisdom within it's pages and for me it was a fantastic source of encouragement.
Well done Derek!

An Excellent Read
... I found this an excellent book, on a par with Driving Over Lemons - if you enjoyed that book, you'll enjoy this. I liked the fact that you got to read about the authors' experiences and life in Spain rather than be bombarded with excessive information on history, culture and the lives of the other villagers. It was an easy read that had me chuckling on a number of occassions and it managed to keep me awake on the train for a whole week. I didn't want it to end. I would definitely recommend it and will be lending it to all my friends and family.

A PROFESSIONAL JOB - TO KEEP THE POT BOILING
The twenty year gap between the events in the book and its publication are clearly evident in this book. The author knew from experience that there was a book in it and eventually, when he needed to, he wrote it. It seemed to me to be a project dug out and knocked off by a professional writer from his handy stash of notes held on file for a rainy day, financial or otherwise. It's competently written, as you would expect from the author's background but it has very much the feel of someone looking at his past through the wrong end of a telescope. The writing doesn't convey the impression that the author is revisiting his thoughts and feelings directly but remotely via the ability of a sound journalistic technique and the knowledge that he would have little difficulty getting it published. Job done.