In this recently published memoir, local author Jean-Luc Barbanneau looks back on his eventful life. He evokes movingly his boyhood in war-torn Algeria and his family’s exile to provincial France. Student days at the time of the 1968 protests in Paris are followed by a move to Brighton and taking up British nationality. After a career in publishing in London and Oxford, Brexit leads him to find a haven in the more congenial environment of Scotland. It is a story about embracing life fully and also reflecting on it, told in short, easily readable and often humorous pieces.