Rating: 
Summary: A House in Sicily
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It was a wonderful book, very easy to read. I just read it over the weekend. If what you are looking is a guide to Sicily this isn't it, but if you want to know something about that region and their way of life during the years the author writes about, this is your book.I am always amaze when people like the author make complete changes in their lives, and start a new life somewhere other than their country of birth. I enjoy reading about her experience, and I want to find out more about Casa Cuseni. What I love about real life books is that the people that live in this crazy and beautiful world are 100 % better that any fictional character. The people that Ms Phelps talks about are wonderful characters that any fiction writer would love to have in their books. I have travel in Italy, but I was never interested in visiting Sicily. After reading this book, I want to go there.
Rating: 
Summary: More memories than house
Review: I thought this was going to be an architectural overview and a long look at the history of a house, Casa Cuseni, in Sicily. What I found instead was a book about the people who came and went as visitors to this house, inherited by a proper British lady, and her interactions with the local populace. There are descriptions of the beautiful country surrounding Taormina, captured between Mount Etna and the Ionian Sea, and its inhabitants, all caught in the forces that ebbed and flowed across Sicily for thousands of years: races and nationalities, soldiers and farmers, kings and peasants. This poignant memoir is particularly appealing to me, being a Sicilian. I loved the anecdotes and vignettes of the local citizens and the distinctive lives they lived. For those doing genealogy research on Sicilians, Italian historians, and cultural studies, I would recommend this book. For those who enjoy a peek into the lives of another culture in another time (1940s forward), this is a quick and delightful book.
Rating: 
Summary: There are better memoirs ...
Review: I usually love memoirs set in Italy, but was quite disappointed by this book. I was interested in the author's description of post-World War II life in Sicily, but her condescending comments about the "child-like" Sicilians (who made her life easier) were rather surprising. Her very obvious disdain for them reduced my enjoyment of the rest of her writing. Not recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Not the Usual Travel Book
Review: In the last ten years there has been a stream of "living on the Continent" books: Brits in Spain, Americans in south of France, everyone in Tuscany. Some were charming, some self pitying, and some "Gee, how exotic it all is! Lucky me!" Well that's not what this is about. It is really the memoir of a house, an inherited house developed in a somewhat great ( not quite grand) style, written by the heir at the end of a long and interesting intellectual life. The various fameous and not so fameous, the hangers on and the local villagers enter into it all and are portrayed along with pictures of the grounds and some of the convivial rooms in what must be described as a family album in the middle of the book. A word of warning. This is a quirky book, sometimes a bit annoying: reminiscent of an elderly aunt telling the assembled family stories about childhood adventures with great-grandfather as the sun sets. Not for everyone such charm.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Usual Travel Book
Review: In the last ten years there has been a stream of "living on the Continent" books: Brits in Spain, Americans in south of France, everyone in Tuscany. Some were charming, some self pitying, and some "Gee, how exotic it all is! Lucky me!" Well that's not what this is about. It is really the memoir of a house, an inherited house developed in a somewhat great ( not quite grand) style, written by the heir at the end of a long and interesting intellectual life. The various fameous and not so fameous, the hangers on and the local villagers enter into it all and are portrayed along with pictures of the grounds and some of the convivial rooms in what must be described as a family album in the middle of the book. A word of warning. This is a quirky book, sometimes a bit annoying: reminiscent of an elderly aunt telling the assembled family stories about childhood adventures with great-grandfather as the sun sets. Not for everyone such charm.
Rating:
Summary: A House in Sicily
Review: Initially it didn't register why this book is distinctive in the expatriot relocation genre. However, about of a third of the into it one realizes that it is intuitively obvious. First, this isn't a popular culture ethnography designed to provide charming anecdotes. A "House in Sicily" is a memoir, and is distinctive as speaking in the voice of an earlier generation. It reflects values, priorities, and a code of behavior which clearly reflect an more formal, and more genteel time (even though a number of the anecdotes are from the sixties). The book challenges assumptions later generations might have about this era, because the writer, and those with whom she associated clearly had a progressive and opened minded perspective, despite a seemingly rigid sense of social proprieties. This book isn't a biography; the writer establishes how this house in Sicily became her responsibility, and how events lead that responsibility to change her life. That being the first half, the remainder of the book consists of selected vignettes from her life describing some of the colorful and eccentric figures who, through word of mouth (among a cerebral set) were encouraged to visit her. The writer speaks in a characteristically restrained, understated English manner. While she remains proudly, unrelentingly English she is very admiring of Sicilian culture which she represents as a distinctly different, yet dignified and admirable. A quick, enjoyable read; I found myself surprised that it progressed so quickly and found myself wishing for more.
Rating: 
Summary: Admiring in a restrained British manner
Review: Initially it didn't register why this book is distinctive in the expatriot relocation genre. However, about of a third of the into it one realizes that it is intuitively obvious. First, this isn't a popular culture ethnography designed to provide charming anecdotes. A "House in Sicily" is a memoir, and is distinctive as speaking in the voice of an earlier generation. It reflects values, priorities, and a code of behavior which clearly reflect an more formal, and more genteel time (even though a number of the anecdotes are from the sixties). The book challenges assumptions later generations might have about this era, because the writer, and those with whom she associated clearly had a progressive and opened minded perspective, despite a seemingly rigid sense of social proprieties. This book isn't a biography; the writer establishes how this house in Sicily became her responsibility, and how events lead that responsibility to change her life. That being the first half, the remainder of the book consists of selected vignettes from her life describing some of the colorful and eccentric figures who, through word of mouth (among a cerebral set) were encouraged to visit her. The writer speaks in a characteristically restrained, understated English manner. While she remains proudly, unrelentingly English she is very admiring of Sicilian culture which she represents as a distinctly different, yet dignified and admirable. A quick, enjoyable read; I found myself surprised that it progressed so quickly and found myself wishing for more.
Rating:
Summary: A House in Sicily
Review: The colorful characters and the the descriptions of the beautiful town, Taormina are well done. It is a lovely little trip to Sicily.
Rating: 
Summary: British Raj Goes To Sicily
Review: This book is exceptionally anglo-centric. Miss Phelps' readiness to use the term "padrone" when referring to herself is telling. She is very much the Queen Mother ministering to her poor ignorant subjects. She evidently thinks that all Sicilians are simple-minded peasants and that their generousity and willingness to accept her was her due as an Englishwoman, rather than evidence of their open-heartedness. Sicily has a rich heritage and history, which she has chosen to ignore. What a loss for her.
Rating:
Summary: A Charming Tale!
Review: This is a charming tale of a part of Sicily as seen through the eyes of a woman in love with its land and people. Daphne Phelps is as warm-hearted and generous as the Sicilian men and women she writes about. Although her perspective at first is that of an outsider, she enlarges her view eventually to give us a number of interesting stories about both the Sicilians and the foreign visitors who arrive and quickly fall in love with Sicily. Phelps's modest and reticent nature sometimes prevents her from telling us all that she hints about in her stories, especially when she relates her friendship with the Mafia Don Ciccio. Was there more romance here than she lets on? There are a dozen tales in her book that she could have dwelt upon at length, but she give us enough fascinating details to stir our imagination. If you love or want to fall in love with Sicily and its open-hearted men and women, read this book.
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