Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life

Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life

3.46 of 5 stars 3.46  ·  rating details  ·  1,142 ratings  ·  221 reviews
In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" (New York Times) lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.

Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the cha...more
Hardcover, 301 pages
Published March 9th 2010 by Broadway Books (first published 2010)
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Ensiform
Not a cohesive memoir so much as a personal diary of the author’s time in Tuscany, now twenty years on since her bestseller. Perhaps because this is her fourth volume of Tuscan ramblings (I have not read anything else by her), she does not take the time to introduce characters but rather just drops their names – is Ed her second husband? Third? Common-law live-in partner? Is her grandchild’s mother her daughter, or Ed’s, or what? Who are all these neighbors, and their relation to her? It’s not t...more
Karen
Oh. My. God. Beyond tedious. I can't even begin to describe how much I do not care about this book. It just doesn't flow. I really loved Under The Tuscan Sun. It had a focus and a purpose. But this thing is a collection of whining anecdotes and whatever else happened to pass through the author's mind at the time that should have been kept to herself. The writing style started to grate on my nerves and I was so distracted I couldn't get through one whole page. She's all over the place. The writin...more
Booknblues
When you are low on budget and longing to get away and experience all the sights, sounds, food and a little camaraderie of Tuscany, immerse yourself in Frances Mayes book, Every Day in Tuscany. It is easy to understand Mayes’ joy in her home in Tuscany. She loves the food, the land, the people and takes you on a trip exploring the artwork of Signorelli, a personal favorite of Mayes.

I find myself wanting to share the work with her in her kitchen, and I especially want to sit at her outdoor table...more
Peggy
I enjoy Frances Mayes' lyrical writing; her descriptions are delightful. I also enjoyed the recipes included in this book and the chance to see how the Italians she knows view, live, and enjoy life.
I read a chapter of this book every night before bed and it was a fun way to settle down and savor another slower, calmer, seemingly carefree world.
It was obvious, however, that Mayes is now a celebrity in her part of Tuscany. She tries hard to convey herself as still one of the common folk living in...more
Suzanne Barrett
It's been twenty years since Frances Mayes bought Bramasole near the Tuscan village of Cortona and fascinated readers and movigoers with her adventures in Under the Tuscan Sun. Now residing part of the year in North carolina and part of the year in her beloved Tuscany, Ms. Mayes and her poet husband take readers on a wandering adventure of life, love and food.

Every day in Tuscany is a lush tale of reacquainting oneself with good friends, happy jaunts and delicious cuisine, simply prepared in the...more
Gail Cooke
It's always a rare treat to hear a book read by the author, in this case the estimable Frances Mayes who recounts her life in Tuscany with unparalleled passion and zest. After all, who could possible remember those days or experiences as truly as Mayes? Having said that, Mayes is not a professional voice performer hence for this listener the long "a's" seemed a bit unsuited to the text and passages I remember reading almost languorously because they brought so much pleasure seemed hurried. None...more
Gail Cooke

Have you ever looked forward to a dinner, a party, an event with so much eager anticipation that the reality could not possibly match your expectations? That's descriptive of the situation I found myself in when awaiting the arrival of Frances Mayes's latest EVERY DAY IN TUSCANY.

I am a huge fan of Mayes's work, totally bewitched by UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN and others, so in all fairness it may be that nothing she wrote could possibly enchant me as much as her previous work. As always, her prose is p...more
Kimberly B.
2.5 stars, rounded to 3 My husband bought me this book as a Christmas gift, most likely because he knows I love the movie Under the Tuscan Sun and because we went to Italy together a few years back and loved it. I haven't read Mayes' previous two books which left me at a disadvantage reading this as there were certainly references that I didn't quite get. On the negative side, the book didn't flow particularly well for me, because the chapters were comprised of shorter passages that didn't alway...more
Caroline
Frances Mayes continues to mine the territory of her life in Italy in this follow-up to Under the Tuscan Sun. The Italy of Frances Mayes is an idealized fantasy, where every vista is breathtaking, every meal is delicious, and every stranger becomes a fast friend. There are endless hours for drinking cappuccino in the piazza, or lounging at dinners that last for 5 hours, or traveling to country towns to view frescoes, or strolling through fields foraging for wild strawberries. There's no real nar...more
Wendy
Deeply, painfully familiar.

After finishing: okay, I get why so many people are all "the first book was great and this one is bad", because it's nowhere near as reader-friendly, and of course a lot of this ground has been trod already, but I was perfectly happy to immerse myself back in this world. So many of the less-than-stellar reviews seem like nothing more than envy and resentment; and I do feel a little bit of that, like "wait, this should be MY life", but I'm glad she gets to live this wa...more
mwbham
This is really only a 2.5 rating. It was, to my surprise, a disappointment to me. I always love her books and her story (especially after spending 4 days in Cortona a few years ago). The book was a bit like a journal - some longer pieces about life in Cortona, many short bits about travel to small Tuscany towns, some thoughts on her life now and before, much about food. It just didn't feel held together for me. I had to keep making myself work toward finishing it.

My favorites were the pieces abo...more
Tina
I picked this book up last week. I love her popular Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany. Her books make me want to move to Italy and never leave. I have a deep love for Italy, as my great-grandparents came to America from Calabria.

Frances Mayes makes me want to sit in my kitchen stirring my own pot of sauce and making my own pasta. I long to meet the people she knows in Cortona. I long to have friends drop by and cook for them when I read her pages.

I especially enjoy her additions to some o...more
Myra
I would've given this book one star if it weren't for the Italian recipes, the chunk about her grandson visiting her (the only relatable part of this memoir) and the paragraph about how to properly buy and store extra virgin olive oil. I found the rest of the book either incredibly self-indulgent on the author's part or the author desperately grasping to write something substantial post-Under the Tuscan Sun (which I haven't read). I am an Italophile (Someone who loves anything Italian? Is that t...more
Beth
Ups and downs with this one...too much museum type stuff for me, but her prose is still compelling, such as:

At a Tuscan funeral..."From my vantage, only her gray nose was visible above the side of the coffin, a little sail setting out for the afterlife." A little morbid, but wow!

and

of course, food related, "This dish recalled the contadini, who always used what they had. It tasted as though it had been prepared with a ladle of time added to the pot." I love that!

Recipes included, I was drawn to...more
Kate
I'm heading to Italy July 1st and there's nothing like a dose of Frances Mayes to get in the mood for a trip to my favorite European destination. Every Day In Tuscany is her latest and once again draws the reader into her world of cobblestone streets, fragrant tomatoes from the garden, and the toll of the bells from Cortona, up the hill. I love that she describes some other lovely, less famous towns, like Urbino, where she said she could imagine herself living if she'd found it before Tuscany. I...more
Cheryl
The movie Under the Tuscan Sun was such a hit, I didn't bother reading the book after seeing the movie. This book seems to be a continuation. At the time she is writing the book, Mayes is a local celebrity--you see it reflected in the way the townspeople treat her, and the tourist visits she gets to her house: Bramasole.

"I came to Italy for the art, the cuisine, landscapes, history, architecture, wine, and the ineffable beauty," she says, and you can tell that this is an authentic statement bec...more
Juliana Haught
I am kind of sad that my honest rating of the book is only "okay" after having loved the author's other Tuscany books so much, especially the first one. Frances Mayes is a fabulous writer, very poetic and lovely prose, but I found myself feeling a little lost in this book. Mayes' descriptions are beautifully visual, but could sometimes use a little more clarity - I felt like I should maybe re-read the first two books so I could keep track of the houses and places that Mayes talks about. Also, th...more
Sunni
Okay, I REALLY REALLY tried to listen to Frances Mayes read her book and I just couldn't take it. Why on earth does her publisher let her read her books? Such beautiful words out of one of the worst reading voices imaginable. All the delights of Tuscany turn flat and sour with her nasal accent and her monotonous reading style. I can just not picture Italy when she speaks. And when she says Bramasole I can feel my fillings ache. I had the same problem with her first book, FORTUNATELY I was able t...more
Lori
When I realized that I was forcing myself to get through this free association on all things Frances Mayes, I set it down never to return. Either she's trying to get every last bit of money she can squeeze out of her former cash cow or she really believes the blather that her publicists have put out about her books. Under the Tuscan Sun was tight, interesting, endearing. Pretty much every other book she's published after have taken the theme and attempted to smother the reader with all the "wond...more
Michelle
This book continues Frances Mayes's memoirs in this third book on her life in Tuscany. This book details the acquisition of their second residence, a stone cottage in the mountains. While most of the book is light and reverent in tone, their is one dark incident in the book that occurs in their original home that makes them grateful for their mountain retreat. The book also chronicles their travels around Italy looking at the art of Luca Signorelli and she spends a fair amount of time on his art...more
Terri Floccare
Every day in Tuscany is the perfect antidote to this year's long Maryland winter. Frances Mayes brought me back to Cortona and the people of the town. It was like catching up with old friends.

As in the other books about her life in Tuscany (Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany) she includes recipes from both the region and her life. My family especially delights in this aspect of her books -- Pasta al Forno con Salsicce e Quattro Formaggi (p. 122) was easy to prepare and a hit with all.

The bo...more
Judith
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life by Frances Mayes, following her travel memoirs Under the Tuscan Sun, and Bella Tuscany, features her tour of Luca Signorelli paintings and frescos in Tuscany and Umbria, exploration of the Marche, and recipes, from ravoili ripiene di patate con zuccine e speck al pecorino to steak. Spending eight months of the year in Tuscany, the Mayes' Italian lives are filled with the seasonal rhythms of foraging, planting, harvesting, and hunting, along with t...more
Cerealflakes
I was disappointed in this book. Frances Mayes is always a bit new-agey for me, but the subject matter is often interesting. This book didn't offer interesting subject matter. Often she would talk about minutia as though that were interesting. I guess what disappointed me most is that unlike Under the Tuscan Sun, this book didn't talk much about Italians or Italy, it was about Frances Mayes. I don't have enough in common with this author to appreciate her stories. In short, this wasn't much of a...more
Micki
I really have mixed feelings on this book - I love how Frances Mayes writes and apparently I was spoiled when I listened to the first book, Under the Tuscan Sun as a book on tape. The woman who performed that had such a lovely, melodic voice that it totally wrapped you into the story. Listening to subsequent books by this author, reading her own work, has been such a let down and a downright distraction! She has a flat, nasal voice that just tortures the Italian that is so nicely incorporated in...more
Caro
Too much of a good thing. There is one moment of sorrow when she and her husband take sides in a local dispute and discover they're still outsiders after all these years, but on the whole, it's too much a one-note paean to Tuscany. She describes herself as surrounded by "tarragon, rue, lemon balm, mints, lavender, santolina, roses, and the afternoon ahead with no more to do than watch the lambent rays streak the valley below." Yes, it sounds heavenly, and I like the lambent rays as much as the n...more
Morganie
I just love Frances Mayes. She can have her head in the clouds sometimes and get carried away with sharing random phrases that she wants to use in other stories, but it's all good. I love the way she puts recipes into the story as a way to clarify her experience, because in Italy food dictates your entire life.
This was a book that I picked up and put down off and on; I couldn't really read it straight through. It's nice to have some happy and easy reading to fall back on on bad days. Also, too m...more
Ismail Elshareef
This is probably the shortest review I've ever written. The long and short of it is: I didn't really care for this book. I wasn't able to engage with it, neither negatively nor positively. I wasn't incredulous at its condescending tone nor elated by its descriptive scenes of the Italian countryside. Maybe the genre didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would. I don't know. All I know is that I was bored reading it I skimmed more of it.

I normally have very strong opinions about the books I...more
Scott Gillespie
For those who enjoyed Under the Tuscan Sun - the book not the movie - then Frances Mayes follow up novel will not disappoint. As in her first she brings her incredible attention to details of life especially as pertains to entertaining and food and delivers them with prose that is truly enjoyable. Aside from living vicariously through her descriptions descriptions or Tuscany, it is wonderful to be able to pair that account with the actual meals she describes. For those who like to cook and love...more
Ed Smith
This a well written book, I was running to the dictionary for her
choose of words as I read it.

Since I was in the Tuscany region in July 2007 with my wife on a
Perillo tour. Mayes' description of Tuscany region holds true to form.

When I was reading a few weeks ago, she was in New York, I would loved
to ask her a few questions about Italy. there is so much to see,
taste the food and wine there. If I can't be there, then I read this
book over and over.

A good read about the Tuscany region and her everyd...more
Marcia
I am a big fan of Ms. Mayes two previous books about her life in Tuscany. Compared to them, this one fell short. The sections chronicling her quest to follow the Italian artists, thought meant to share her passion for the artists and their art, lacked passion, feeling more like distracting filler than, quoting the book "a passionate and inviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian art." Far more interesting were the stories about her neighbors, her family her home. Unfortunately, t...more
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Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life (Paperback)
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life (ebook)
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life (Kindle Edition)
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life (Audio CD)
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life (Audio CD)

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Frances Mayes's book, Every Day in Tuscany , the third volumne in her bestselling Tuscany memoir series, was published March 9, 2010, from Broadway Books.

In addition to her Tuscany memoirs, Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany , Frances Mayes is the author of the travel memoir A Year in the World; the illustrated books In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home; Swan, a novel; The Discovery of Poe...more
More about Frances Mayes...
Under the Tuscan Sun Bella Tuscany A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller In Tuscany Bella Tuscany & Under the Tuscan Sun (2 Book Set)

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