Rating: 
Summary: WARNING: If you have the audio version of this book ...
Review: My husband and I listened to the unabridged version of this book while driving from New Jersey to Kentucky (about 12 hours). There should be a warning on these tapes cautioning you not to listen while driving. Fortunately, I managed to stay awake during the times that I was at the wheel, but as soon as my husband took over, I was drifting to sleep almost immediately. Once in a while, I would return to consciousness and ask, "Who's getting married in the house?" "So, have they finished the kitchen yet?" "What happened to the Etruscan wall?" Most of the time, I found that my husband hadn't been listening either, even though he was supposed to be awake. Fortunately, we returned home in one piece ... but thank goodness for several pit stops to stoke up on good black coffee (not expresso, I'm afraid). The two chapters on summer and winter recipes were particularly soporific. I might have enjoyed this book more had I been able to read it and skim through the most tedious parts, but listening to 11 hours of narration can only be recommended to those needing a good night's sleep.
Rating: 
Summary: Enough already!!!
Review: I bought this book to read during my trip to Tuscany. Everyone told me how great it was....and the first couple chapters were ok but I quickly got tired of hearing her drone on and on about the great meals with endless bottles of wine and her perfect contadina. I wanted to know more about her and how she came to this point in her life...her relationship with Ed, her family, her exhusband...she touches on it and goes nowhere. Her descriptions of play by play of the housework were excruciating. How this is a best seller is beyond me.
Rating: 
Summary: Having trouble getting through this!
Review: It has been a fantasy of mine for many years to visit Tuscany, and I thought buying this book was a tad cheaper than the plane ticket. Well, less than halfway through the book I find my attention wandering.Firstly, I have NOT seen the movie yet, although I know for sure I will now. This book has Diane Lane on the front, so you would think that the story loosely relates to the movie. Nope! It is about Frances Mayes and some guy named "Ed". This book is more like a How-to-fix-up-a-crumbling-villa guide than the romantic description of Tuscany that I was looking for. Basically it is about two? Americans who come stomping into Tuscany, spend a million dollars on an abandoned house, and then spend probably just as much again on people to fix it up for them - a lot of the time they are not even in the country! After reading this, I wanted to be able to taste the fresh tomatoes, and smell the fields of sunflowers... and feel as though I had been there! Instead I can smell the dust from construction and sweaty workers. Oh well. I will wait til the movie comes out on DVD instead, then I can indulge in my Italian fantasy!!
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful book - now a beautiful movie!
Review: I loved this book - it is so well written. It is a very entertaining and educational travelog. There is now an excellent movie made starring Diane Lane as Frances Mayes. The movie... like the book - is superb. Very beautiful!
Rating:
Summary: Great book and a Great Movie too!
Review: My wife and I loved this book. It is beautifully written and very realistic and grounded as well as informational. We also LOVED the movie starring Diane Lane. It was a great date movie that is a beautiful companion to this great book. Check out the movie as well!
Rating:
Summary: Don't settle for this Italy.
Review: Having traveled to Italy extensively over the last ten years, everyone I knew told me about this book when it was first published. I tried (and tried) to read it, but was appalled not only at the writing itself, but at the Italy this woman seems to have experienced: something like a toy one uses to entertain oneself, assuming one has ample funds available, and then profit supremely from (can't blame her for that, I suppose). Top that with an author so self-absorbed she has to read her own book-on-tape (no better than she can write, I'm told), and who can't bother to endure the pain of learning the language of the county she's so completely entranced with, and it's a miracle we didn't end up with her instead of Diane Lane in the film. Read Theresa Maggio, read Jan Morris, read Mary McCarthy, read Luigi Barzini, read Lampadusa and a host of wonderful writers for a taste of the rich, complicated and eternally intriguing beauty that is Italy. If you want the over-simplified, patronizing, romance-novel version, then this would be your choice.
Rating:
Summary: Pompous and self serving
Review: Frances doesn't belong in the country I recognize. She is extremely patronizing toward Italians and appears to be a spolied rich girl. Who is Ed? Is he her boyfriend; future spouse; current beau? She makes it seem all of if all of us can simply purchase a home in Tuscany. It is second nature! We all have off four months a year We were all left huge inheritances. Frankly after reading this book I can't stand the woman. She is also quite condescending toward Italians (my heritage) and Ed. It's all about Frances and her petty problems. I can't believe they made a bogus movie based (losely) on this book. Please visit Tuscany and you will see it's different that this self-indulgent tripe. By the way we visited Cortona and spit at her house!
Rating:
Summary: Don't compare this with the movie!
Review: To complain that the book version is nothing like the movie is just plain silly. Under the Tuscan Sun is a lovely, leisurely metaphor into renovating a house and a heart -- both in mid-life (the house, already ancient, is probably bound to last another 500 years -- with or without her possible ill-considered ministrations). For readers who love contemplative, descriptive, transcendent writing, this book is for you. For readers looking for sex and a facile, pandering story line, go see the movie. I only wish the movie were closer to the original. I understand the need to create a dramatic story line, but I think that could have been done by using the real characters of Frances and Ed (with his growing muscles and wall-building, stone schlepping determination). And the bucket of cement is far more entertaining than the fabricated pigeon poop moment in the movie. Having just delivered my ninth book to my publisher, I promised myself two weeks of dolce far niente. Tops on that list was rereading Under the Tuscan Sun on my own balcony surrounded by palms and cypress -- in this case just an hour south of her other hometown -- San Francisco. Just what the doctor ordered.
Rating:
Summary: An inexpensive way to tour Italy!
Review: Unlike a lot of readers of this book, I loved it! I thought Frances Mayes did an excellent job on sharing her knowledge of Italy. As for the storyline, I enjoyed it very much. The characters were lively and the plot entertaining. I have no problem recommending this book to other readers!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and self-indulgent melodrama
Review: Under A Tuscan Sun is one of those books that I finished just because I started it. The story idea sounds idyllic: Restore a damaged psyche by restoring an Italian villa. The problem is that the book indulges the author's egocentricity and does little else. She mentions her friend/partner/husband. We don't know the relationship because she does not bother to tell us. And she does not have him speak until 200 pages into the book. Instead, we only know him as the man who lives with her in Italy and who carries shoes. The restoration project also reads like a joke. Mayes nearly destroys the villa by cutting a door through a loadbearing stone wall, against all advice, and then is proud that she has done so. And she blithly responds to a question about the down side of restoring an old building in another country that "There is no down side." If you are feeling hurt and want to commmiserate with another injured soul, albeit one who clearly wallows in her pain and rejects simple virtues such as common sense, read the book. If not, you will probably wish you had read something with more depth, substance and pragmatism. Dave Barry would qualify.
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