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Every Day in Tuscany
Seasons of an Italian Life
1 of 1 copy available
Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona, how life in the mountains introduced her to a "wilder" side of Tuscany—and with it a lively engagement with Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention to life in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden. Moving always toward a deeper engagement, Mayes writes of Tuscan icons that have become for her storehouses of memory, of crucible moments from which bigger ideas emerged, and of the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where Under the Tuscan Sun began.
With more on the pleasures of life at Bramasole, the delights and challenges of living in Italy day-to-day and favorite recipes, Every Day in Tuscany is a passionate and inviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian life.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 9, 2010 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780307702999
- File size: 257196 KB
- Duration: 08:55:49
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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In her latest delectable memoir, Frances Mayes provides a continuation of the wonderful postcards she has been writing about her Tuscan life. Her stories of evening pizza feasts in the garden and morning coffee while people watching in the piazza are punctuated by her rapturous pursuit of the Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli and her new love for a little stone cottage in the mountains. Mayes narrates her own work, starting off a little tentatively, with stilted enunciation. Soon, however, she warms to the task, allowing her passion for her subject to shine, particularly when she speaks a little Italian or describes one of the many recipes included in a PDF that is conveniently included in the audiobook. K.O. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine -
January 11, 2010
In her most recent Tuscan tour, Mayes conducts readers through the gentle and sometimes violent and disruptive undulations of the seasons from winter to summer in her Tuscan home of Bramasole. In this new memoir, she reflects on the palpable scents emitted by the old-growth chestnut, apple, and olive trees, the jovial hospitality and strength of her friends and neighbors, and the familiar and sometimes disturbing sounds of herds of wild boars rushing through the orchards. Mayes and her husband, Ed, situated themselves even more firmly in Tuscany a few years ago when they discovered a falling-down stone cottage on a rugged slope and restored it as a second home. We follow Mayes as she forages for the prized amarini
, cherries the size of five-caret rubies, which are bottled with alcohol and brought out in winter to spoon over polenta cake, pears, blackberries, asparagus, fennel flowers, and figs. We continue on our journey with her as she leads us in search of the great Renaissance artist Luca Signorelli from Cortona, where her new house lies. Mayes’s affectionate and warm memoir vividly celebrates the lush abundance and charm of daily life in the Italian countryside.
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