Rating: 
Summary: Hot Thing to Do
Review: "For anyone interested in living in Europe for a while, Swanson's book is loaded with wonderful details on how to arrange rental of a house in Italy. The cover of her book is a fabulous color painting of a Tuscan hillside done by Swanson herself.
Rating:
Summary: Splendid Insider's Tour Guide
Review: "Sandra J. Swanson writes a delightfully chatty online gardening column for gardens.com. In its meandering and engaging style, Swanson's book, 'A Summer in Tuscany,' is a highly enjoyable memoir of a season in a region that Americans are passionately in love with. It's also a splendid insider's tour guide."
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for anyone traveling through Italy!
Review: A Summer in Tuscany is becoming one of our most popular books for the summer and any other season. Funny, informative, thoughtful, the book takes you to the heart of the Italian countryside and into the lives of Tuscany's most charming characters. Readers who harbor a dream to "live Italian" for a few weeks or for a few months will find the book invaluable. The How-To's of reasonably renting - not buying - a villa in Tuscany for an entire summer are yours for the reading. Sit back on the terrace of a Tuscan villa overlooking the vineyards, olive trees, and medieval town. Go along to the Prada outlet and to a famous Antinori vineyard. Wander streets made for handcarts, wind your way through the white roads of Chianti. Watch a Perugina prostitute pose. Shop Deruta, home of the famous Italian majolica. Learn how to make a truffled omelet and how to sauté squash blossoms so that the flowers open on your plate. Along the way, the reader will learn enough Italian to bargain in the local open air markets where English is not spoken and to taste the best wine at the degustatione where the winemaker will give you a special deal on a case of DOCG merely because you know how to say "degustatione" (day-goo-staht-see-OH-nay.) Summer in Italy, from the comfort of your chair. Once you've finished the last page, you'll want to start this disarming book again from the first page.
Rating: 
Summary: she's no Frances Mayes...
Review: After reading the review entitled 'Haughty', I realized that this was a book I would enjoy. I am so sick of reading books on how a person backpacked through Italy or how s/he found bargain shopping. When I go to Italy I do not like to skimp, I buy what I want and don't go looking for ways to skimp...that's what vacation is all about for me. So kudos to Sandra Swanson for sharing her exquisite experiences, these are the experiences I want to read about--save McFrugal versions for another place!
Rating: 
Summary: Haughty hooked me!!
Review: After reading the review entitled 'Haughty', I realized that this was a book I would enjoy. I am so sick of reading books on how a person backpacked through Italy or how s/he found bargain shopping. When I go to Italy I do not like to skimp, I buy what I want and don't go looking for ways to skimp...that's what vacation is all about for me. So kudos to Sandra Swanson for sharing her exquisite experiences, these are the experiences I want to read about--save McFrugal versions for another place!
Rating: 
Summary: Brava!
Review: Finally somebody's written something stylish for us folks with Barolo tastes and Chianti pocketbooks. This book is very informative but it is molto charming. We - my family and I -- felt we were right there with Sandra (may we call her Sandra?) on the whole trip. We also learned how to speak some Italian. We, too, now have "family conversations :)" This book shows innocent (but intelligent) Americans stumbling upon the unexpected and then getting themselves out of it and having a great time doing it. As the author writes, "If a trip goes smoothly, there's not much to talk about." I loved equally the chapter where they get all dressed up and go to a grand festa that turns out to be a Grand Communist Party Rally and the chapter describing visiting the Grand Spa in Montecatini, a spot we thought was only for millionaires. Now we know the price of a plastic glass gets you in. The book starts out a little bit awkwardly, similar to the way a trip starts out, then picks up momentum and leaves you wishing you didn't have to go home.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious
Review: I first heard of this book in the early spring, on The Today Show. The discussion was, How Best to Rent a Villa in Italy? I was intrigued. I ordered the book and I was charmed. There is much information in the book. But it is delicious reading. Suddenly you have completed the book and suddenly you can say wonderful words in Italian and you have delved into the Italian countryside. The title is Tuscany but there is excellent writing about Umbria and the Lakes as well.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious
Review: I first heard of this book in the early spring, on The Today Show. The discussion was, How Best to Rent a Villa in Italy? I was intrigued. I ordered the book and I was charmed. There is much information in the book. But it is delicious reading. Suddenly you have completed the book and suddenly you can say wonderful words in Italian and you have delved into the Italian countryside. The title is Tuscany but there is excellent writing about Umbria and the Lakes as well.
Rating:
Summary: Vacation Reading
Review: I found this book while looking for a vacation book - that is, a book that makes you feel as you have been on vacation when in fact you are stuck in Paris working. This is a memoire, really, and will appeal to those who love Italian opera, food, wine, open air markets, people, Italian anything. The author drives you in her stick shift Fiat, away from the big cities, to meander off-piste (off the main roads.) I empathized that she missed her cat and her dog and her garden at home - "A cat completes the pleasure of reading." I laughed aloud in Venice and teared up in Assisi. I vacated.
Rating:
Summary: she's no Frances Mayes...
Review: I guess this book would be fine if you know absolutely nothing a about Italy in general or Tuscany in particular. Being of Italian descent and having recently traveled to Italy, it just didn't tell me much that I didn't already know. The thing that turned me off to this book is the author's very annoying habit of providing help with pronunciation of every Italian word or name within the text , e.g., San Gimignano (Sahn-Jim-in-YAN-o), and provides this dubious "help" for the same words - repeatedly (Re-PEET-ed-ly), sometimes several times on the same page (grrrrr!) What ever happened to footnotes? It seemed very condescending to me, and also to someone I loaned the book to.
|
