I was hiking around the Gorges du Verdon this summer, a pretty, remote bit of Provence up away from the sea tucked in the foothills of the Alps. From where we were camping it was a half-hour uphill scramble to the tiny hamlet of Chasteuil, which sits near a big French hiking trail.

Chasteuil itself is a miniature, ramshackle little village like the sort of place you might visit in Skyrim: coming into it, the first house you see has a blacksmith's forge outside it, an old whetstone and some kind of freestanding woodburner. Wild lavender grows in all the drystone walls, rickety children's swings sit abandoned in enclosed fields, drowned in weeds, and streets tangle back on themselves so that you're never sure you're not heading up someone's driveway. When I was there, two women were washing their bras in a tub outside their houses, with, round the corner, a lone Jean-de-Florette-looking motherfucker ambling with a hoe on his shoulder. Two girls were playing boules in a patch of gravel outside a church which had been closed as unsafe. I looked the place up quickly on my phone. Population: 12.

It really felt like it couldn't have looked much different to a visitor a hundred years ago or more; yet behind the shuttered windows, presumably everyone is still watching Breaking Bad, and sending aubergine emoticons to their paramours. Still, it's nice to see that there are still parts of France which can give you that feeling.

Now, I've used a lot of different guidebooks in my time and this one is honestly so great. It's not really a travel guide at all in the conventional sense; it has no listings of boutique hotels, and no details of which train to catch if you want to reach Castellane before lunch. It's all historical, cultural and natural background. Explanations of architectural traditions, lists of local writers and artists, fieldguides to wildflowers and apiculture, regional cuisine…the list goes on.

Obviously no one has any reason to read this unless they're heading for this area, but anyone who is should absolutely get it. I will be getting one for every part of France I visit from now on. ( )