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Mar 19, 2009

Leftbanker rated it:

I had some friends come to visit me here in Spain and one of them was reading this book. I had read it before and thought very little of it. As I am now in the middle of editing my own travel book about Spain I practically yanked this away from them to reread. I have to say that my first impression of Under the Tuscan Sun was accurate. As I edit my book about life in Spain I am a little worried about what I feel to be a lack of structure and focus in what I have written. After rereading this boo More...

1 comment like (12 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2007

SJ rated it:

I didn't finish it. And, frankly, that's not like me at all. The book is well reviewed, and well written. And yet, somehow, I just really didn't like it. The author can truly write, and the topics were of great interest to me, but I felt the entire time like she was untouchable. She was encased in her own experience and at no point did I feel welcomed or able to understand her. Her life path never really found a commonality with my own, nor did she make me love her. In the end, I did myself the More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2008

Ali rated it:

WARNING: THIS BOOK IS THE MEANDERING INCOMPLETE THOUGHTS OF A MIDDLE-AGEd WOMAN THAT EATS LIKE A ITALIAN SUMO WRESTLER AND BOUGHT A DISASTER OF A HOUSE THAT NEEDED A HUGE AMOUNT OF REPAIR. THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO THIS BOOK. Perfect if you are practicing speed reading. You could skip every other sentence and still understand that she actually enjoys fixing up this crappy house in Italy. Absolutely nothing like the movie. Disappointing.

2 comments like (17 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2008

Heather rated it:

I first heard about this story when the film version was being hyped. For some reason I never bothered to view it, perhaps because it appeared amidst other seemingly trite films that did not interest me. However I found this copy in the used library bookstore and from the inside cover description I realized that it's subject matter greatly interested me. Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, At Home in Italy is her personal account of a life shifting and settling in the landscape of the Italian c More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

Ryan rated it:

Plot: Author summers in Tuscany, buys an old farmhouse, refurbishes it, travels through Italy, and cooks constantly.

Review: Open up a "Sunset" or a "National Geographic Traveler" magazine, and imagine reading a beautifully descriptive & evocative 6-page essay on what it's like to live & work & cook in Italy. Then, when you finish it, flip the pages back and start the article again. But substitute the Zuppa Toscana with Porcini Risotto. The Pesto Crostini for the F More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2008

Donna rated it:

This was a re-read, and I loved it again. I know there's plenty here who
don't think much of this book, but it totally appeals to my utterly romantic
notions of running away to live in Europe someday....sigh.... ;-) Haven't
been to Italy yet, but this book *was* largely responsible for my subsequent
trips to France, Spain, and Turkey. And my list (TBV list - "to be
visited" - tee hee) has been growing ever since.

This was also my first PalmPilot read More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

Samantha rated it:

While i thoroughly enjoyed the book, i WILL say that its not what i expected since i had seen and enjoyed the movie first. most of the story is completely different than the movie.....but what bothered me is that there was no real story plot here besides the fixing up of the house over time. as she fixes the house, she fixes her life, and in the end "turns italian" and finds where she belongs (not that she seemed out of place at the beginning). I guess i was slightly disappointed in 2 More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2008

Anne rated it:

Frances Mayes wrote this book based on her experience of buying and restoring a villa in Tuscany. I read it summer 2001 while I was visiting Meredith in St. Croix and left it for her to read. The descriptions of life, light, food and wine made me want to move to Italy. I remember a lot of the recipes contained pine nuts, which I didn't think I liked at the time.

Frances Mayes used to teach at UGA, and John knows her. I told my brother to read this book; he told me it changed his life More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2009

Antof9 rated it:

I saw the movie first and didn't realize it was based on a book.

So first of all, this is not a novel. It's a woman's journal of the purchase and clean up of an old house in Tuscany. It includes recipes, gardening directions, weather reports, menus, etc. And if that's what you were expecting, it's actually very good. However, I unfortunately saw the movie when it came out, in complete ignorance that it was a book first.

And. . . I'm still confused about how *this* book More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2008

Rob rated it:

I'd never heard of this book until the autumn of 1999, a few days after I arrived in Cortona, the town/subject of this book. Every time I turned around, all these baby boomers were asking me if I knew where Francis Mayes lived. I had know idea who she was. I soon learned, however, that she was the author of this very book, which was about her experience rehabbing a home on the other side of the hill from Cortona.

My experience in Cortona was life changing. When I returned to the stat More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2011

"Miss" rated it:

Wanting to learn about all things Italian was the reason I picked this book. I started it as an audio book. But even as a listen while being a prisoner on the highway, I had to stop after the first CD. Her out of touch with reality pinings about her problems encountered when buying a home in Italy (who in the world can afford this in the first place!)grated. Hearing that one of her primary joys of her Italy travels was buying shoes, was a major clue that this was not a book for me. Then when she More...

0 comments like

Jun 09, 2011

Jeruen rated it:

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes on Blogcritics.org.

I have to say, I am not a non-fiction reader. My purpose in reading for pleasure is to escape reality for a moment, as there is already plenty of opportunities given my day job to read non-fiction. Thus, whenever there is the rare event that I pick up a book that happens to be non-fiction, most of the time, I hate it. This time, that is still the case. The last More...

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Apr 29, 2011

Maia rated it:

This is the perfect book for the summer, when you can lie lazily outside and pretend to be in Italy, or in January, when you can burrow under your blankets and wish to be in Italy. Either way, it's a wonderful thing to have on hand to allay boredom or, if you have a lunch date but you've already eaten, get hungry all over again.

The beginning sequence is a little slow, and I have to admit I got a little tired of her endless rhapsodizing over, say, cutting vines away from a stone wall in More...

0 comments like

Feb 26, 2011

mossum rated it:

I so rarely stop reading mid-book, but I found this one to be so rambling and uninteresting and I'm at a point in life where I feel no obligation to push through such an experience, even (or especially) to please someone who thought for sure they knew what I'd like.

The prospect of buying a shambles of a house, no matter where, and restoring it, is a subject that is of tremendous interest to me. Although I'm not "traveled," I can well image that the effort of obtaining a pass More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2011

Rosa rated it:

Before finishing this book, I’d queued up a posting for my blog, Talking Story, about how books can come to you more than just once, and that there is at least a twice: One you decide to buy — what were the reasons? And two, you finally read it completely at the time you were probably supposed to. It’s this divine providence that books seem to have; they just do. Such was the case for me with this book, feeling I’d read it now at the right time, for I’ve had several false starts with it. I’ve lo More...

0 comments like

Oct 06, 2010

Tarah rated it:

Here's the thing. I loved this book when I first read it (was I 20? maybe 22...). Because I was young, and hadn't learned how to resent those people who gallivant around the globe with too much money on their hands telling us how charmed their lives are while describing the picturesque landscape. That being said, the book is well-written and the descriptions of Tuscan life are, of course, deeply seductive. Because that's the point: a life where you worry whether your wrought-iron gate is cas More...

5 comments like

Mar 20, 2010

Gaisne added it

Sorry for my english but I am french and I love F. Mayes'book. I might have ridden her 3 books , under the tuscany, Bella Italia, and around the world ( saveurs vagabondes in french) that I am still reading for the 3rd times ! I offered those books many times to my friend. We must travel to Spain next september and I love so much Italia , I read " around the world " to find some pleasure to go there with the same eyes than Frances Mayes. She has such glance to the beauty of simple life More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 02, 2010

Tara rated it:

I hear a lot of crap about how this book is silly, fluffy, boring, slow, unstructured, unserious. I've had three people now (all men =p) tell me it's "chicklit." First of all, is that supposed to be an insult? Second: What? Perhaps this all has something to do with how popular the book was and continues to be. Regardless, don't let the naysayers dissuade you from giving it a try.

The writing is poetically beautiful, illuminating a place that is equally so. Plenty of More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 07, 2009

Davis rated it:

This is an inspirational book written by a woman who is going through a transition in her life. While visiting Tuscany, she decides to take a leap of faith and to begin a brand new life. Even though she can't afford the home which she wants to buy, the owner realizes that how much the author values the home and that it should be hers. Consequently the owner accepts the author's modest offer. That was spiritual! I especially appreciated this aspect since I am the author of a spiritually-themed bo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2009

Laura rated it:

“ It’s not fair that some people get to live like this!” she said, throwing the book down on her unwashed, non- authentic linoleum floor. “ A wonderful companion that willing does chores, looks good without his shirt, never argues, likes to travel; cash to buy and then renovate a villa in Tuscany where you live every summer and at Christmas and bottle your own olive oil from your own trees; have tons of flowers, fruit trees and terraces with lounge chairs; find Etruscan stones in your back y More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 19, 2009

Tammy rated it:

I've had this book probably since it was first published in the mid-Nineties but I never had the urge to read it until now. I've seen the movie that was ever-so-loosely based on it and I have to admit that the movie didn't fill me with enthusiasm to read the book. The other day I had this urge to read it, so I curled up in bed with it. Honestly, it was like I was there. There isn't a great deal to say about this book. It's memoir, it's travel-writing, it's lush and beautiful. There doesn't need More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 02, 2010

Jen rated it:

I liked this book, but I actually read it because I liked the movie and so I was (unpleasantly) distracted by the differences. The movie was SO different that I don't think they should have used the "based on" phrasing. They probably should have said "inspired by actual events" because the truth of Frances Mayes' journey is much, much different. That being said, I like the book as well. However, I did find it difficult to get through in parts. The tempo was a little plodding

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 01, 2011

Donna rated it:

Finally finished this. All things have their time & after a year languishing 2/3 finished in my carry on bag, this one finally had it's on Memorial Day when it was finally warm & dry enough to sit out on the patio.

Memoir is not really my thing, but I found myself delighted once we got past the whole buying the house, remodeling the house & got to the travelling & eating in Italy thing. Oh, to be in the income bracket that can afford plane tickets to Italy....

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 29, 2010

Stephanie rated it:

Under the Tuscan Sun was first published in 1996, and given that there’s already been a film made of it, I’m a little late in getting to the party–or the family dinner as the case may be. However, given that it’s turning into a chilly autumn here in my native Melbourne, I thought that a sunny memoir might be right up my alley.

Under the Tuscan Sun is part travel memoir, part foodie tome, and part a contemplation of place and person. Author Frances Mayes and her husband Ed, both acade More...

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Sep 09, 2010

Faith rated it:

Finished this last night and really enjoyed it. Mayes is a descriptive writer doing an excellent job of transporting the reader to her sun-drenched home in Tuscany or the fog-bound shores of San Francisco. She uses the three year process of renovating a villa as the "frame" for her memoir, passing easily back and forth between the expected disasters and delights of renovation, memories of growing up in the South, history and people of the cities or areas she's visiting and her favorit More...

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Apr 25, 2010

paperdust rated it:

Somehow I was expecting adventurous escapades and quirky Italian characters. ah! they turned out to be the carpenter, the builder and the plumber. The author's redecorating efforts are rewarded with starry starry nights and organic utopia. The end was painful to read (it read more like a To Do list). The author writes about art history and I tried to follow, but it was quite deep - better if pictures were included to shed some light on the subject, eg. Etruscans, ancient artifacts, paintings, to More...

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Jan 16, 2012

Carolyn rated it:

If you open this novel with the expectations of a story about a desperate, divorced woman who's lesbian friends send her on a gay tour of Tuscany, where she has something of a mid life crisis and buys a dilapidated house in the Italian countryside, fixes up the house, meets many people and falls in love with a charming, dark handsome Italian dreamboat, well, then you saw the movie. And you got the part about the house and the fact the the house is in Tuscany right.
I had seen the movie yea More...

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Jan 16, 2010

Chana rated it:

It reminds me of Martha Stewart's This Old House in some ways. Less details about the house and more about the foods that grow and are available in Italy. Lots of gardening. In fact these people work so hard on their house and property that I feel like they live in a different world than me. I feel like I'm dragging myself around like an old dog on a leash, while these people, who are probably my age, are creating a life they love working 12 hours a day or so on hard physical labor. Sometimes I More...

0 comments like

Dec 07, 2008

Lori rated it:

I began this years ago but never got into it and I don't know why. I tried again and thoroughly enjoyed it this time around so I'm glad I gave it another shot.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her adventures buying an old farmhouse in Tuscany and restoring it. My husband was worried that reading this would make me long for the same thing. Actually, the opposite happened. While reading about her frustrations and cultural discoveries was delightful, I can't imagine ever having the time More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 28, 2008

Denise rated it:

I've only just begun, and I want to live this woman's life! How awesome is it to visit a sun-drenched foreign country (southern Italy no less) and buy a fix-it-upper villa to renovate top to bottom. I envy her, relaxing on her patio with chianti, crusty bread, and olives, after a day spent redoing stucco and tile. (after pg. 148)

Wow...I really enjoyed this book with its vivid descriptions of a niche of life in rural Tuscany. The food and wine details were enough to have me saliva More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

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