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Bella Tuscany
by
Frances Mayes invites us back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food there and throughout Italy.
Frances Mayes, whose enchanting #1 New York Times bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun made the world fall in love with Tuscany, invites us back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food there and throughout Italy.
Happiness? The color of i ...more
Frances Mayes, whose enchanting #1 New York Times bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun made the world fall in love with Tuscany, invites us back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food there and throughout Italy.
Happiness? The color of i ...more
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Paperback, 304 pages
Published
April 4th 2000
by Broadway Books
(first published January 1st 1999)
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Ennchanting though Italy may be, it's hard to keep caring about the endless details of exactly what the author ate or what broke in the house or was planted in the garden. This book is often alleged to be a "meditation," which seems to be a polite term for "has no plot or real character development," and no amount of description of a sun-soaked landscape or excellent red wine seems able to overcome that.
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Jun 18, 2007
Heidi
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who's wrapped up in the Tuscan craze
Shelves:
nonfiction-memoir
I loved Under the Tuscan Sun but was greatly disappointed by this follow-up. While the first book was beautifully crafted and each word seemed to be carefully chosen, this book seemed slapped together with little care. It's as though her editor said, "Hey, your first book is a hit! Give us more of that Tuscany stuff!" To which she promptly obliged, with this book and cookbooks and journals and a bad movie.
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Italy is a beautiful country with a rich history.
This story is largely frivolous. The description of a sunset as "old underwear pink" landed this book firmly in the giveaway pile.
If you want to read a book that glorifies everything Italian (deservedly or not) then you will probably like this book. If glorifying everything because it is Italian may make you gag, skip this book. ...more
This story is largely frivolous. The description of a sunset as "old underwear pink" landed this book firmly in the giveaway pile.
If you want to read a book that glorifies everything Italian (deservedly or not) then you will probably like this book. If glorifying everything because it is Italian may make you gag, skip this book. ...more
Frances Mayes’ Bella Tuscany was, in my opinion, a gem of travel writing. Her work is flowing and brilliant, with amazing pictures painted in easy and unpretentious words. If I could, I would write just like this.
The book gives a beautiful, honest picture of real life in Tuscany, and after reading it I know that someone, somewhere, shares my love of Italy at a basic level.
Mayes’ writing is wonderful and easy to follow. The book even shares some great sounding recipes from both her time in Italy ...more
The book gives a beautiful, honest picture of real life in Tuscany, and after reading it I know that someone, somewhere, shares my love of Italy at a basic level.
Mayes’ writing is wonderful and easy to follow. The book even shares some great sounding recipes from both her time in Italy ...more
Rich white lady spends half her time in Italy. Writes a pretentious book about " the simple life" and thinks that if she uses enough descriptive words it will hide the fact that she is a bad writer.
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Not recommended if you like books with a plot, or characters, or action, or point really. The only reason you should read this is if you live or plan to travel to Tuscany and want to get a feel for Italian life as seen through the eyes of someone very keen on gardening, cooking, and day trips. This is not a healthy memoir, where you can get behind the voice and journey of the author. She doesn't overcome anything, nor does she provide you with insight on anything more than which asparagus recipe
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This book wasn't as polished as "Under the Tuscan Sun". It didn't seem tidied up, but had a very real streak to it- right out of the journals and onto the page without cleansing the raw impressions and thoughts of the author to please mass readers. This made it a bit uneven but that did not detract from the whole for me- perhaps even added to it for this type of book. I found the author to be more of a real person.
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This book just goes on and on about nothing! The only think I learnt was you buy a lot of veg very cheap on the market in Italy.
I really enjoyed "Under A Tuscan Sun" by the same author and was hoping for more of the same. This is really meandering and steam of consciousness though, and it really could have benefited from more structure, editing, and plot. Tuscany in the spring really does sound lovely though.
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If you want to be transported and transformed this summer, read this book. Frances Mayes lulls you into the restorative cycle of Italian life. Perched in her idyllic villa, she journals sparsely with a writer’s mind and a food-lover’s heart. She effortlessly recreates the tastes, sights, sounds, and characters of Tuscany in this follow up to her successful novel-turned-film, “Under the Tuscan Sun.” Frances and her husband are restoring an ancient farmhouse in the countryside, and throw themselve
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Once again we visit Frances Mayes and her husband at their home in Cortona, Italy, a ancient hill town in Tuscany. She's a lovely writer, and her descriptions of the characters, the food, the gardens - and the work involved in making and keeping them so beautiful - draw the reader in until you feel like you're right there beside her. Especially entertaining is the chapter on her difficulties with the Italian language: "Now that I have more understanding of Italian, I have greater occasions to ma
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I love Italy! It's amazing that a memoir set in Italy can make it sound boring, but I have to give up on this one. Place names are thrown in one after another with no particular importance other than the author being able to say "I was there," and there is no depth. A fourth of the way in and I have no idea who this author really is or what she's about. She's bland. Maybe she isn't in real life, but when it came to the scene where she's watching other people have fun and moaning that they don't
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Mayes reminded me why I became interested in this genre in the first place. Sequel to her ubiquitous Under the Tuscan Sun, she describes her travels as the guide we all wish we could have should we have the good fortune to visit these places ourselves. I particularly enjoyed the topical chapters on gardening and cooking, and noted several pages in my own journal for future reference.
After Under the Tuscan Sun this book was a major disappointment. I feel the author must have been given an advance by her publisher and therefore had to come up with something so she just strung random thoughts/notes together. Even the title was misleading, as it feels like less than half the book was about Tuscany. I’m now officially put off reading this author.
Couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t even get into it. Meh.
Mayes continues her exploration of Tuscany in this follow up to her first book. A series of essays about the sweet life, food, neighbors, journeys, and house restoration, there seems to be something for everyone here. I've been to many of the towns and places she describes, even staying in Cortona and taking a snap with her Bramasole, so the collection was especially memorable. I like this quote: "What is replenishing? What is depleting? What takes? What gives? What wrings you out and, truly, wh
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I enjoyed Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany is even better. Mayes writes with humor, grace, and sensitivity. The love she feels for her summer home, Bramasole, all of Tuscany, and her Italian neighbors shines through. You are transported through her wonderful exposition on the beauty of the landscape, the joy of the Italian people, and the cornucopia of fine food that she describes throughout Bella Tuscany right to Cortona. La Dolce Vita!
Review coming soon!
Love Mayes's books! Makes me want to visit Italy again!!
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Helps me slow down a bit, longing for the simple quiet times she describes, enhanced by food, flowers, friends.
Beautiful words , adventurous heart
I loved every part of this book, and every bit of Frances and Ed's verve for life. The author brings your heart with her to Italy, especially Cortona. They pack so much into one life with joy and enthusiasm. Their lives are full of wonder and happiness. I felt honored to be along for part of the ride. ...more
I loved every part of this book, and every bit of Frances and Ed's verve for life. The author brings your heart with her to Italy, especially Cortona. They pack so much into one life with joy and enthusiasm. Their lives are full of wonder and happiness. I felt honored to be along for part of the ride. ...more
If you really like Italy and Italian things. Very descriptive but no real story here.
I heard Under The Tuscan Sun read on XM's BookRadio a few years ago, and enjoyed it, So I was inspired me to pick up this title when I spotted it among the piles of books my mother rescued from her job. I enjoyed the chapters focused on her observations of individual Italians she meets, and her sojourns to various local markets. I appreciated the recipes liberally sprinkled throughout, and found myself buying fennel this week at Trader Joe's, even though I really haven't the foggiest idea what t
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Unfortunately I didn't like this book nearly as much as I did "Under the Tuscan Sun." I'm not certain how much of that is due to having read that book a long time ago, and how much because I found most of this book to be uninteresting/odd. The beginning and end are interesting. The daughter's wedding was nice, and parts of the middle are alright as well, but most of it read like bad diary entries that you wouldn't normally share with anyone. Things like "and when it was too hot I just sat around
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Mayes' fantastic follow-up to the immensely popular Under the Tuscan Sun, this volume does not disappoint. Imagine Italy, the sounds, smells, tastes and way of life. Mates invokes the full extent of your imagination with the full richness and simplicity that life in Tuscany has to offer. Your senses are immediately engaged with the taste of Tuscan cooking (including a number of delicious sounding recipes), the richness of good wine, architecture and art like none other in the world, and life as
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Well, I did really like this book, maybe more than 3 stars, but not quite as much as "Under the Tuscan Sun". It's more about her life in Tuscany but kind of episodic, here's when we went hither and yon and what we found/ate there, and then here's how to make some authentic Tuscan food. Which is not as good when you're buying the ingredients from an American grocery store as if you can get them freshly-grown (even Farmer's Market food makes a noticeable difference!). Anyway, I like the recipes, a
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Well written but tiresome about food and plants. It read more like a series of newspaper reports, little articles about what the author did here and there and the many place names and such got a bit boring. Probably my fault because I should have got out a map to read along with the book (why didnt the publishers put in a map?). But I appreciated the poetry in her writing, the images and the background characters.
Oct 22, 2016
Connie
added it
I really thought that I would enjoy this book since I have lived in Italy, I really didn't like the book. Not so much that I didn't like the book asI disliked the style in which it was written. It felt to me more like a series of snippets instead of a smoothly written tale of the author 's experiences. While I can certainly relate to the feel of Italy and Tuscany especially; and we certainly loved the people, I didn't finish this one- I just couldn't get into it.
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Reading this book was like having a favorite movie and then getting so excited when they make a sequel--and the sequel just doesn't have the magic of the first one. I still love "Under the Tuscan Sun," but "Bella Tuscany" just felt like a travelogue to me. It didn't have the same charm or spark that the first book had. In fact, I didn't even finish it.
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Readers also enjoyed
Frances Mayes's new book is See You in the Piazza: New Places to Discover in Italy published by Crown. Her most recent novel is Women in Sunlight, published by Crown and available in paperback in spring 2019. With her husband, Edward Mayes she recently published The Tuscan Sun Cookbook.
Every Day in Tuscany
is the third volume in her bestselling Tuscany memoir series.
In addition to ...more
In addition to ...more
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