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Summary: Tuscauy Calender
Review: the one you show is for 2001,, we are now at the end of 2002 and going into 2003 do you think you can update the site?
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Summary: Bella Tuscany ? - only sometimes in this book
Review: I have just finished reading Bella Tuscany during our family holiday in the hills east of Florence. 2 years ago at the same old Tuscan farmhouse, I read and thoroughly enjoyed the first book Under The Tuscan Sun. This follow up, started off reasonably well but by half way, it began to loose its grip on me. Being in Italy I could relate to quite a few of the passages but began to wonder what the purpose of this book was. Jumping back and forth across the Atlantic, from present to past, by the end I realised that one third of the text should have been in the first and the rest was simple padding out. The recipes especially are a waste of pages particularly those from the deep south of the US. One passage that summed it all up for me was the section about tourists in Venice - the author appears to look down on those, like myself without realising that She too is just another tourist in Venice. Bramasole was an interesting conversion project but is still a holiday home.The current book I am reading, started whilst we were still under the Tuscan sun, is a very different matter - Tim Parks' Italian Neighbours is a joy - a real ex-Pat living and working near Verona - this book captures the real Italy without the distractions contained in Bella Tuscany. I have still to read the third book In Tuscany which I bought for the photographs (coffee table top book!!) - sorry Frances, if I wanted recipe book I would have bought another one to match those in the cupboard. If Under The Umbrian Sun appears on the book shelves, I don't think I'll bother.
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Summary: Frances thinks she IS the Tuscan Sun
Review: Ms. Mayes has, yet again, managed to upstage a land as magnificent as Italy. For yet another time we are treated to the self-absorbed ramblings of this gastronomo-llectual jet-setter. If you want to read a treatise on life as it can (apparently) be lived in a charmed and timeless European setting, try Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence". He is mercifully less full of himself.
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Summary: La Brutto Americana
Review: Ugh, not believing that this could possibly be worse than "Under the Tuscan Sun", I have again subjected myself to Ms Mayes take on Italy. Never again!! At least her previous work had some decent recipes in it. We are now privy to Fran's ramblings on her ingrate houseguests, the Mafia, various odd phobias, the inconvenient timing of Ed's mothers death, along with the fact that she is apparently unable to recognise the father of her own child at her daughter's wedding. Oh the horrible burden of having to jet back and forth between Tuscany and San Francisco. The financial hardship of renovating not one but two homes simultaneously (oh the inhumanity, make it stop!!) All this with that shop till ya drop attitude that makes Fran twitch with excitment in her quest to find the perfect 400 thread count sheets.
And what about dear Ed? I think he is either a figment of Fran's imagination or he must spend a great deal of time in a vino induced state to endure her. This book is NOT about the real Toscana, it is pure unadulterated drivel.
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Summary: Book Club Disaster
Review: Last night my book club got together to discuss this wretched book. All of us absolutely *did not* like the book.
Mayes shallow, stereotyped images disgusted me, it was as though she presented a Disney-fied version of what the citizens of Tuscany were like. Mayes comes across as a snob, and one who doesn't even live an interesting life. She's rude, but not outlandishly so, I couldn't even qualify this as a guilty pleasure reading.
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Summary: The Sweet Life in Italy
Review: After reading Under The Tuscan Sun several times I was so happy when this book came, more wonderful Italian living from Frances Mayes' pen. And I was not disappointed. As I did with the first book I have also read this one several times. Together with her husband, Frances Mayes have bought and restored an old Italian country house. The first book was mostly about the restoration, in this one we meet the couple living long summer months and also other parts of the year in Tuscany. They also travel to other places of Italy, and all the time we meet the country using Frances Mayes' eyes and writing hand as glasses. Mayes has a deep love for Italy, and she shares her love with us in a way that we can never be untouched. I remember last year driving southward in Italy, through Tuscany on my way to Rome (for my first time) it was like visiting a country I already knew. I had read so much about it in Mayes' books, and know I will read the books again and again. I'm always waiting for more books from Mayes' pen, and it was a pleasure to find an article in Traditional Home by Bramasole, Frances Mayes Italian home this month. Britt Arnhild Lindland
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Summary: SWEET LIFE
Review: I enjoyed the book a little more than "under the tuscan sun" but the "money is no object" lifestyle. I guess we all know these two people have money, but someone with a little more class would not make this fact so abundantly clear....and does not add to the book. I really did not care about the "New" House in San Francisco. Most of the book read like a family christmas letter and what happened over the year. You will get a better insight into some of the regions and towns that they travel to, but again it is thur the eyes of Frances Mayes.....if you want a travel book buy Rick Steves.
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Summary: As Sweet as a Tuscan Breeze
Review: I've spent many wonderful summers in both Tuscany and Lombardy and I think Frances Mayes captures the spirit of Italy perfectly in this lighthearted and entertaining book. I smiled at the sections that depicted Tuscan life and laughed out loud at the spoofs. When Mayes writes about food she makes my mouth water; her shopping trips left me with memories of my own days browsing through the shops of the many little towns that dot the Tuscan hillsides. Mayes' writing is not only wonderfully descriptive, it's absolutely flawless. It's smooth and flowing and the pages simply fly by. Bella Tuscany has made me decide to visit Italy again very soon (and to visit more of it) and, more importantly, to buy every Frances Mayes book as soon as they are published. La vita e bella, and Mayes proves it with this book. I want more.
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Summary: A Shopping Memoir, Not a Travel Memoir
Review: This book was a real disappointment. I had hoped to learn much about Tuscany, but actually learned very little, apart from Ms. Mayes' appreciation for material wealth. I, too, was annoyed by the "money is no object" approach to Ms. Mayes' life. But, then, I'm no Marxist. She has the right to live that way. But if she's going to write a travel memoir she should focus on the people of Tuscany. The only Tuscans we get to know are the ones she's contracted to renovate her house. All I got was a great deal of shopping, with but a little site seeing. On top of all that, we have to read about her buying a new house in California as well. The real irony of the story is that she returns home to find her partner's mother (future mother-in-law) near death; someone she describes as devoted to family and not wealth; someone she has unfortunately only met twice in her life. So much Ms. Mayes could have learned from her family if she had spent more time with her and less time using Italy as a mall. Finally, this book is full of such inappropriate imagery, like the flower that reminded her of her first open-mouth kiss. Her metahpors are generally pretty wierd. Please don't read this book.
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Summary: An elegant memoir
Review: No author is perfect, and no book satisfies the wants of every reader to an exact degree. On the whole I found this book to be wonderfully written and full of evocative language and images. It has inspired me to explore Italian culture, about which I had previously entertained very little interest outside of a general enthusiasm for Renaissance art and medieval literature--and I am grateful for that inspiration. Mayes' excellent poetry is personal, and I would certainly expect the same from her prose. This book is more of a memoir than a travelogue and should be judged as such. After reading Bella Tuscany (as well as Under the Tuscan Sun), I feel as if I know the author better, and I feel as if I may be able to attain some of the things in life I believe are worth striving for. Whether or not this author exists on some more exclusive social or financial plane than me is beside the point and did nothing to hinder my enjoyment, and I would heartily recommend this book to anyone.
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