Spanish lessons is a wonderfully humorous account of an author struggling to write a novel based in Siberia, while restoring a Spanish casita, learning Spanish and coping with the frustrations of both language and culture.

Lambert, a globe-trotting journalists makes base in a quiet village near the Costa Blanca on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. His desire to integrate with all that is his new life and “family” brings him into many amusing situations.

Fortunately Lambert’s wife, Diane, speaks enough Spanish to keep them out of too many scrapes, but they also have the different Valenciano, the regional language to contend with.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the way Lambert writes, my hopes were with him all through to the end, the desire that his novel was well received so that he could afford to stay in the community that had become home, was my wish along the way.

From cantankerous gardeners to leg-splinted cats he kept me turning the pages with tale after tale of a life of mishaps – gravel in the paella and satisfactions – getting one over on his gardener ( only one!)

The quaint village in Alicante was probably never the same again either after Lambert arrived, both sides treating the other with caution and respect, accepting their foibles and learning good-natured tolerance.


A shrewd book, by a shrewd man – I like his style, and his attitude to life. This is a lifestyle book but I shall be looking out for some of his novels, after his journalistic adventures of being shot in Israel and attempting the Himalayas in a jeep, they should be good reading.

I admire his desire to be at one with the Spanish community and wish that all those that live in Spain were so, this book should be compulsory reading for all purchasers of property in Spain.

A shrewd book, by a shrewd man – I like his style, and his attitude to life. This is a lifestyle book but I shall be looking out for some of his novels, after his journalistic adventures of being shot in Israel and attempting the Himalayas in a jeep, they should be good reading.