Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes
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Book Reviews of Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
Book Review: Under the Tuscan Sun.
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are purchasing this book because you enjoyed the movie, Watch out!
It is a completly different creature from the film. However the language and feel of the movie still exists in the book, and the book is (as often the case) far superior. It is simply wonderful. Reading the book makes you want to be there.
Also there are receipes in this book, and they are excellent!
Book Review: Great reading plus some very good recipes!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was wonderful reading. The author made it very interesting--and also included quite a few recipes that looked tasty. I can't wait to try some of them.Book Review: Great condition
Summary: 5 Stars
The book came fast and in great condition. I would buy from seller again. ThanksBook Review: A Mid-Summer's Tuscan Dream
Summary: 4 Stars
I was gifted this book several years ago by a colleague, but was given
the issue with the picture of the Tuscan countryside on the front cover
rather than the one with Diane Lane. In any event, I decided to read it
this summer, and am nearly through reading it now. A fair warning: if you
are expecting to read "Under the Tuscan Sun" the movie version, you'll
be very disappointed. The movie is actually a favorite of mine, and I
saw it long before reading the book, but understood that I would be
reading a memoir and that Hollywood always takes license when it comes
to basing films on books.
That having been said, there's no gay bus tour through the countryside,
no hot Italian guy who drives a sports car (although Mayes's new partner
"Ed" sounds rather hot the way she describes him), no champagne addled
blonds taking late night dips in piazza fountains. As other reviewers have
noted, the author's prose is lovely and her descriptions of the Tuscan
countryside are rich and vivid, but the reading is tedious at times (esp.
when she and "Ed" decide to trapse through the region visiting one tomb
and charming little restaurant after another). She also does not spend a lot
(enough?) time discussing her interactions with local folk or any relation-
ships she may have developed with Italian friends and neighbors. But the
purpose of the book, I believe, is to relate her own musings of the inner
journey that moving to Italy brought about after a divorce and the joy she
found immersing herself in a completely new land and culture. This
relationship with the land of Tuscany.....the warmth and sensuality of the
terrain and the vibrance of the food it harvests.....receives ample attention.
Reading Mayes, you feel the heat of the sun, smell the earthiness of the
fruit trees, taste the sweetness of the wine. I only wish she had punctuated
her story with more private time with Ed. A little romance would have
mediated the redundancy of her travels and remodeling travails with some
fire and passion outside of her newly renovated kitchen. Overall, a lovely
book to escape to.
Book Review: A Great Book - At the Right Time
Summary: 4 Stars
Two years ago I would have never bought this book or if received as a gift I'd have chucked it. I'm history-action adventure-fantasy-sci fi-war kind of guy. If it don't go boom I normally don't bother. And this book is even less appealing in it's lack of character development, plot, or dramatic tension. It's all about an upper middle class white chic from Frisco academia living out an expat dream renovating a house in some chunk of Italy I've barely heard about. And cooking everything in sight. But courtesy of the U.S. Government, I'm not privy to a lot of luxuries right now. So reading this book that evokes a luxurious simplicity in a spectacular setting and wonderful food is just overwhelming. Reading about the food without access to an Italian restaraunt or incredients - its worse than porn. So if your imagination can handle what amounts to a written invitation to a person's house and a write up of sumptuous Italian or Italian inspired grub get this book. And don't but the BS other reviewers say about her being condescending - she never once talks trash about the natives. Mostly she's in culture shock or even in awe. And if she's occasionally pretentious, well she is an academic, isn't she? If the recipies are half as good as they read I can forgive that and you can too. So deal with that. And if you can't, I recommend J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Bernard Cornwell, Douglass Preston and Lincoln Childs, Warren Murphy, etc (too name a few). Their books got boom.