Rating: 
Summary: Benissima!
Review: I love Italy, and therefore I loved this book. It really captured the essence and flavor of that marvelous country. I had it on my living room coffee table when a committee from the Dante Alighieri Society of Washington was at my house for a meeting, and several people recognized the book, and they all love it, too! Most of them are Italian, and even though I'm not, I am just as entralled with the country and the culture. The writing is exquisite, Sandra J. Swanson must be a professional writer, although I think it's her first book, since there are no others listed. I feel like I know her and her family now, the writing was so intimate. When I read that Ms. Swanson had also done the cover illustration I was bowled over! She is truly a Renaissance woman, so Firenze is the perfect place for her!PS, I'd sure love to be around for one of the great meals she prepares!
Rating:
Summary: A pleasant and unsuspecting suprise!
Review: I read the author's gardening column at Gardens.com and so I had thought that her book would be wickedly funny and also about Tuscan Gardens. I was disappointed to begin with. She was disappointed to leave her garden to go to Tuscany. But those of us who are gardeners take time from our gardens to share other interests -- good food, wine, love of family and pets, and a nicely turned phrase. I enjoyed reading this book and I am now passing it onto my daughter to read as well.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Armchair Reading
Review: It is a surprise that the reviewers speak here only of travel tips in Italy. It is true that the information is very good. It must be said that far more important is that the book is the story of a budding young opera Diva in her Italian studies and culminates with her first opera performance which is exquisite. Put away the travel tips and read this book for the promise of a brilliant new star.
Rating:
Summary: Surprise
Review: It is a surprise that the reviewers speak here only of travel tips in Italy. It is true that the information is very good. It must be said that far more important is that the book is the story of a budding young opera Diva in her Italian studies and culminates with her first opera performance which is exquisite. Put away the travel tips and read this book for the promise of a brilliant new star.
Rating:
Summary: We enjoyed this book before our trip to Italy
Review: My husband and I were planning our first trip to Italy when I read a review of "A Summer in Tuscany" on Rick Steves web site. After reading several books about Italy, and the Tuscany region in particular, we decided that,for us, this was the book that painted the picture of Tuscany. We both read it, and several times during our trip we would say "this is just like Sandra said it was, in the Tuscany book". We even tried the fried anchovies..... I know, but they were great. We felt like a friend had spent a summer in Italy and told us all about it. We now wish we could find a book like this about France!
Rating:
Summary: We enjoyed this book before our trip to Italy
Review: My husband and I were planning our first trip to Italy when I read a review of "A Summer in Tuscany" on Rick Steves web site. After reading several books about Italy, and the Tuscany region in particular, we decided that,for us, this was the book that painted the picture of Tuscany. We both read it, and several times during our trip we would say "this is just like Sandra said it was, in the Tuscany book". We even tried the fried anchovies..... I know, but they were great. We felt like a friend had spent a summer in Italy and told us all about it. We now wish we could find a book like this about France!
Rating:
Summary: Good Groundwork
Review: Once you have read this, you will not be a neophyte if you travel to Italy. It will be as if you have been there before, recognizing, understanding, and appreciating the way Italy lives. It is not for the tourist who moves from big city hotel to big city hotel in a bus. This book gives you the confidence and impetus to venture away from the big cities, as Rick Steves does, but with more class. Andiamo!
Rating:
Summary: A Treasure
Review: Thank you, Sandra. (I wonder, do authors ever read what the reader writes?) I loved your cover painting and photographs and your quick wit and excellent information. Our local librarian recommended your book to me. She added that our library had only one copy and it was becoming dog-eared. She characterized your book as a "pass along, word of mouth book." Therein, lies the problem. Fiona put me on our library waiting list (I was 14th on the list here in our small Wyoming town!) Then, fortuitously, I was able to buy your book on my last trip to London, where it is also wildly popular (and, I must add, nicely stocked in the bookstores.) I confess that I do not normally lend books, but I have lent this one. Hint to the lending reader: Write your name prominently inside the frontispiece to assure a return. This is not exactly a review, I would not presume to write an actual review nor know how to go about it. If you love Italy, as I do, and if you love good writing, you will be enriched by this wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: A Treasure
Review: Thank you, Sandra. (I wonder, do authors ever read what the reader writes?) I loved your cover painting and photographs and your quick wit and excellent information. Our local librarian recommended your book to me. She added that our library had only one copy and it was becoming dog-eared. She characterized your book as a "pass along, word of mouth book." Therein, lies the problem. Fiona put me on our library waiting list (I was 14th on the list here in our small Wyoming town!) Then, fortuitously, I was able to buy your book on my last trip to London, where it is also wildly popular (and, I must add, nicely stocked in the bookstores.) I confess that I do not normally lend books, but I have lent this one. Hint to the lending reader: Write your name prominently inside the frontispiece to assure a return. This is not exactly a review, I would not presume to write an actual review nor know how to go about it. If you love Italy, as I do, and if you love good writing, you will be enriched by this wonderful book.
Rating: 
Summary: HAUGHTY!
Review: This book, should be entitled, "The Rich American Who Spends Her Summer Buying 1,001 Souvenirs in Italy." I got so tired of hearing of Sandra's lifestyle of the wealthy traveler. All she did was boast about her hotel room with "mahogany beds, carved headboards," how she shopped in St. Mark's Square, hired a maid for her villa and shopped for any designer crap she could get her hands on. It was so tiresome to read, in detail (forklift cost and all) about her custom made table and dishware she needed to have shipped home. I wanted to gag when she said, "We squeezed into our first class clothing, ate a first class breakfast, stuffed our stuff in to the car..." Please. The only thing I did enjoy was the familiarity of places I have visited in Italy. But she should have left out half of the shopping excursions and added more about the history, art and the rolling hills covered with red poppies. My advice, if you want to read a great book about Italy read, "Under a Tuscan Sun," it will give you a much better sense of the true Italy and also make you laugh out loud, which Sandra failed to do.
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