Florence
& Tuscany (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
by Christopher Catling, DK Publishing
Paperback from DK Publishing
Book Published: April, 2003
In
Tuscany
by Frances Mayes, et al
Frances Mayes continues her love letter to Italy in this sequel to
Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany. The restoration of her home, Bramasole,
is complete, but Tuscany keeps unfolding. While the earlier books chronicled
her and her husband's first years in Italy, this one is less full of stories
than meditations on the elements of Tuscan pleasures, accompanied by photographs
that give color to the place Mayes has described so lovingly and well.
"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 - Amazon.com
Hardcover: 269 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.05 x
10.23 x 8.28
Publisher: Broadway Books; ; (October 31, 2000) s
ISBN: 0767905350
The
Hills Of Tuscany: A New Life In an Old Land
by Ferenc Mate
A sensuous valentine to author Ferenc Máté's adopted homeland, "The
Hills Of Tuscany" brims with lush descriptions of golden dales, scrumptious
meals, rich wines, and friendly natives. After years of nomadic roaming
from Central America to Canada, Máté (a writer) and his wife, Candace
(a painter), visit Tuscany and impulsively decide that this is where they
will settle down. A year later they return and begin the hunt for their
dream house. As the likeable Mátés (they're funny and suitably grateful
for the chance to live in one of the world's garden spots) troll the countryside
with a series of colorful Tuscan middlemen, it's impossible not to become
emotionally involved in their quest, and when they finally discover the
perfect abode - La Marinaia, a tastefully renovated stone farmhouse set
amid scenery that Ferenc describes as "like being in the middle of a painting"
- you're thrilled right along with them. Subsequent chapters follow the
Mátés' growing friendship with their neighbors, who not only help rototill
the garden but also reveal where to find porcini mushrooms and truffles
in the nearby woods. All in all, reading "The Hills Of Tuscany" is the
next best thing to quitting your job, climbing on a plane, and finding
your own Tuscan dream house. --Rebecca Gleason - Amazon.com
Hardcover: 256 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.00 x
8.70 x 5.86
Publisher: Unknown; ; (November 1998)
ISBN: 0920256384
Pasquale's
Nose: Idle Days in an Italian Town
by Michael Rips
In this lively book, an American expatriate tries to make a new home
in a small Italian city famous for its clannish ways. He succeeds in many
ways, but not without plenty of gaffes and cultural misinterpretations--all
of which make Michael Rips's memoir that much funnier. "If you live in
Sutri for a hundred years, you won't have a friend; if you live in Sutri
for five hundred years, you'll have a friend, but you'll regret it." So
runs a proverb from the Tuscan city in which Rips, a sometime attorney
and full-time student of the good life, sets his narrative, a place that
defies guidebook description and most of the rules of logic. There, a first-class
idler in a town where no one is in much of a hurry, he encounters such
figures as a diviner who heals sick tractors by touch; a Calabrian outsider
who gauges people by the smell of their feet; a chef whose favorite dish
is porcupine; and an illiterate postman, plus a bewildering array of secrets
and strange encounters that test the innocence of our innocent abroad.
Tinged with the bittersweet, Rips's extraordinary memoir will please Italian
and armchair travelers alike. --Gregory McNamee - Amazon.com
(Paperback -- April 2002)
The
Most Beautiful Villages Of Tuscany
by James Bentley, Hugh Palmer (Photographer)
With the recent popularity of such notable books as Frances Mayes'
"Under the Tuscan Sun" and Elizabeth Romer's The Tuscan Year: Life and
Food In an Italian Valley, a legion of new Italia fans are finding out
what many already know: the charm of Tuscany cannot be denied. In "The
Most Beautiful Villages Of Tuscany", author James Bentley and photographer
Hugh Palmer offer a decidedly unique view of this remarkable region. Focusing
on thirty-six villages and towns from all over Tuscany - chosen for "both
their intrinsic beauty and for the part they have played in Tuscan history
and culture"--the gorgeous full-color photographs, accompanied by superb
accounts of each village, truly "bring the region to life, evoking the
richness of architecture and landscape, and bringing out the charm of the
Tuscan people". The final chapter is devoted to useful travel information,
including passages on hotels and restaurants, market days and festivals,
as well as a select bibliography and detailed map of the region. As beautiful
as it is informative and entertaining, "The Most Beautiful Villages Of
Tuscany" is "the perfect visual tribute to the timeless beauty of these
small towns and villages". Amazon.com
Hardcover (September 1997)
Thames & Hudson; ISBN: 050001664X
Tuscany:
Inside the Light
by Joel Meyerowitz, Maggie Barrett
Hardcover from Sterling Publishing
Book Published: October, 2003 |
| |
A
Tuscan Childhood by Kinta Beevor
What could be more romantic than living in an ancient fortress, dining
in its rooftop garden, and sleeping under the stars? English artists and
intellectuals like the author's parents (painter Aubrey Waterfield and
journalist Lina Duff Gordon) have traditionally adored the Italian countryside,
and their daughter's enchanting memoir describes the happy haven they found
near the Tuscan town of Aulla. Kinta was only 5 in 1916 when she made her
first trip by pony trap up the steep road to their hilltop abode, and neither
exile to English boarding school nor the Second World War could keep her
away for long. Famous friends like Bernard Berenson and D.H. Lawrence make
cameo appearances, but the real stars are the earthy, dignified Tuscan
peasants who worked for her family. Through them, the author immersed herself
in the timeless rhythms of rural existence. The text's highlights include
a vivid account of vendemmia, the grape harvest, and the glories of Italian
cuisine. Anyone who can read her descriptions of the local polenta, zuppa
di verdura, and other meticulously prepared dishes without feeling a rumble
in the stomach truly has no interest in food. Though Beevor's final chapters
note the changes that have come to Tuscany in the postwar era, her recollections
pay loving tribute to a way of life that truly seems eternal.
--Wendy Smith - Amazon.com
Paperback: 271 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.70 x
8.03 x 5.25
Publisher: Vintage Books; ; (February 8, 2000)
ISBN: 0375704264
A
Tuscan Paradise by Marina Schinz
"I have found a country retreat of such delight that I would be happy
to live there forever," writes Marina Schinz of Valle Pinciole, the modestly
sized but immodestly beguiling Tuscan estate of her friends Matteo and
Federico. Schinz, a renowned garden photographer, has a well-developed
eye for beauty on a human scale, and her exquisite photographs make as
much of the dense intimacy of the villa's Jekyll garden as of the glorious
hills and olive groves that lie just past its borders. Schinz was first
attracted to the undeniably abundant hillside gardens of Valle Pinciole
(some of them designed by the landscape designer Russell Page), then fell
in love with the whole package, which is as fruitful a marriage of nature
and art as its attentive owners can create. Schinz muses on the area's
Etruscan history, neatly tying the ancient Etruscan love of luxury to the
estate's very deliberate loveliness of design. Each corner of Valle Pinciole
has small surprises in store: the classical Italian lemon garden surrounded
by a sea of lavender, the maze hedge behind the orangerie, the stand of
bamboo in the woodland garden. Schinz deems Valle Pinciole "a rare find"
for its palpable sense of culture, its harmony and grace, and the way it
reflects the temperaments and passions of its owners. Amazon.com
Hardcover: 176 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.91 x
10.33 x 10.22
Publisher: Stewart, Tabori & Chang; ; (March 1998)
ISBN: 1556706863
Tuscany
by Sonja Bullaty (Photographer), Angelo Lomeo (Photographer), Marie-Ange
Guillaume
Hardcover: 180 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.84 x
10.17 x 10.29
Publisher: Abbeville Press, Inc.; ; (October 1995)
ISBN: 1558598952
Under
the Tuscan Sun: At Home In Italy
by Frances Mayes
In this memoir of her buying, renovating, and living in an abandoned
villa in Tuscany, Frances Mayes reveals the sensual pleasure she found
living in rural Italy, and the generous spirit she brought with her. She
revels in the sunlight and the color, the long view of her valley, the
warm homey architecture, the languor of the slow paced days, the vigor
of working her garden, and the intimacy of her dealings with the locals.
Cooking, gardening, tiling and painting are never chores, but skills to
be learned, arts to be practiced, and above all to be enjoyed. At the same
time Mayes brings a literary and intellectual mind to bear on the experience,
adding depth to this account of her enticing rural idyll. Amazon.com
Paperback - 280 pages Reprint edition (October 1997)
Broadway Books; ISBN: 0767900383
Walking
and Eating in Tuscany and Umbria, 2004
by James Lasdun, Pia Davis
Paperback from Penguin USA (Paper)
Book Published: 24 February, 2004
Within
Tuscany: Reflections On a Time and Place
by Matthew Spender
Paperback: 366 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x
7.71 x 5.03
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper); ; Reprint edition (May
1993)
ISBN: 0140178384
In Maremma: Life and a House In Southern Tuscany
by David Leavitt
Thanks to authors like Peter Mayle and Frances Mayes, a whole subset
of travel memoirs is now devoted to the theme of restoring old houses in
Europe. While most authors use the home as a vehicle to examine the surrounding
culture, David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell tilt their measure decidedly on
the side of home decor. "Nothing tells you more about a people than their
houses," Leavitt and Mitchell write, as they set out to "construct a past
based on our own private notions of comfort, upon which we could glance
with pleasure in some hypothetical future." While initially daunted by
the task of restoring a country house in bureaucracy-plagued Italy, the
two dive in with gusto when they find Podere Fiume (River Farm) in Maremma,
a little known part of Tuscany. Unlived in for more than 20 years, the
farmhouse's downstairs is composed entirely of animal stalls, complete
with stone troughs, while its two acres are lined with olive and fruit
trees and a small creek. The authors tell of tapping into the Italian tradition
of craftsmanship, taking on iron-fitters, lamp and lampshade makers, wood
carvers and furniture restorers. They design their own couch, reconstruct
an 1803 fireplace and commission a copy of an 18th-century Venetian bookcase
with secret doors for CDs. They even recount the paint colors and fabric
designs they consider. Needless to say, the density of detail they devote
to their decor will mostly be of interest to those who pour over design
magazines like House & Garden and "World Of Interiors", as the authors
do. Fortunately, they also devote some of their short but precise chapters
to humorous and telling bits about Italy - the habits, feuds and "poetry
and madness" of Italian bureaucracy - as well as to portraits of some of
their more interesting neighbors, such as Pepe the iron-fitter and Pina
the restaurateur. Written from the point of view of expatriates who live
among but are not of, "In Maremma" offers an interesting, sometimes overdone
and other times right-on-target portrait of a less glamorous if no less
interesting part of Tuscany than Frances Mayes's. --Lesley Reed
- Amazon.com
Out of Print - Try Used
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Private Tuscany
by Elizabeth Helman-Minchilli
Tuscany's hill towns and countryside have enthralled inhabitants and
visitors for centuries - the golden light in the afternoons, the grape
arbors, and the rolling hillsides dotted with rustic farmhouses and villas.
"Private Tuscany" invites us into these dwellings, giving us a glimpse
of how life is lived in this warm, inviting place.
The homes featured in this gorgeous volume are as enchanting as the
Tuscan towns and hillsides they're built on. Many embody a style we've
come to associate with Tuscany: dark-timbered kitchens with dried herbs
and garlic ropes hung from the rafters, original terra-cotta tile floors,
large-windowed living rooms, and artfully frescoed walls. There are centuries-old
furnishings crafted by skilled Italian artisans and elegantly manicured
gardens containing hidden grottos and classical statuary. But the homes
also reflect the special touches of the people who occupy them. For instance,
a theater lover displays his exquisite collection of miniature theaters
in the salon; the daughter of a villa owner paints traditional murals on
the walls and mosaic patterns on the floors.
Simon McBride's photographs skillfully capture the magic of these Tuscan
homes and feature a variety of residences, from simple farmhouses to grand
villas and palaces. The book's four chapters divide the homes into types:
rustic, classic, grand, and modern. An index at the back serves as an introduction
to Tuscany's pleasures, providing contact information for sampling the
region's wine and produce, fine dining, hotels and houses, gardens, and
crafts.
Several of the homeowners featured in Private Tuscany have gone to painstaking
lengths to restore these buildings after decades, or even centuries, of
neglect. The results, from the simplest farmhouse kitchen to an elaborately
frescoed dining room, are breathtaking. --Kris Law
Out of Print - Try Used
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