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Product Details
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"What makes the people so friendly, no, not just friendly, so genuinely kind and generous?" Mayes asks an Italian friend, then turns her intense attention to answer the question herself. Her answers range from baci (kisses), an intimate expression that "keeps alive the joy we all are born with," to la piazza, the navel of Italy's intense sense of community, to a deep love affair with food and seasonal delights. (Mayes shares the latter and once again gives recipes from the traditional to the idiosyncratic while her poet-husband Edward treats us to a description of the olive harvest). Then there is the Tuscans' territorial attachment to the land. Place, Mayes writes, makes you who you are and it is by reading the landscape that you find the story of how the people lived. Like a guidebook written by a good friend who reveals to you all the secret places they've found, Mayes leads us from out-of-the-way towns to great frescoes to tiny restaurants with exquisite delicacies (and even gives you their addresses). Turn down any one of Mayes's streets and there is something to contemplate.
In the distance you see villages crowning a hill or protectively stacked against a slope. Every one pulls me toward its altarpiece, special triptych, arched gate, gothic window, or fountain. Every one has its opinionated, eccentric, friendly, and intrinsic characters who make each place deeply itself.
Once again, Mayes presents Tuscany as an irresistible place where the pleasures are unexpected, sumptuous, and downright enviable. Immersing yourself in In Tuscany is the next best thing to being invited home to Bramasole. --Lesley Reed
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complete the Experience,
By A Customer
This review is from: In Tuscany (Hardcover)
A delicious feast for the eye and heart. If you have read the book, if you have travelled in Tuscany this book brings it all home visually.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful,
By Heidi Lettieri (Wappingers Falls, New York United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In Tuscany (Hardcover)
I have all three books about living in Italy by Frances, and visited Italy 2 1/2 years ago. I feel as though she is seeing and experiencing through my eyes! How exciting that Frances captures the exotic land and people with such accurate detail. I can't wait to go back!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Italy as I knew it,
By Llewellyn C. Douglass (Portland, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In Tuscany (Hardcover)
After having lived in Italy, I can say that this book catches the true essence of that country. The quietly beautiful photographs recall the Italian masters and the scenes portray the everyday life of Italy and it's people. This 3rd book of Frances Mayes is not filled with the hilarious anecdotal stories of the first two, but it is broader and told with more assurance of time and place. How can one read and look at this book and not fall in love with Italy ?
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