In Tuscany

Hardcover - 31 October, 2000 - Broadway
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By: Frances Mayes
ISBN: 0767905350

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About this book

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

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Reviews by readers

Complete the Experience

A delicious feast for the eye and heart. If you have read the book, if you have travelled in Tuscany this book brings it all home visually.

If you are the least bit interested in anything Italian then this is the book for you. "In Tuscany" has a great intro into the lifestyles there and more. There are many beautiful pictures and easy to follow recipes. A must have for those who are looking for a ecsape from our busy lives or an inspiration to redecorate your own home.

Beautiful photographs

This book is quite different from Mayes' first two books about Tuscany, which were more like travel memoirs. This book's focus is photographs, accompanied by some commentary, thoughts, and insights from Mayes, as well as some recipes. Frankly, I didn't read the text at all. I just enjoyed the photographs. I wish I'd had this book when I was reading Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany because all the places she talks about in those books are scattered throughout the pages of this book in beautiful photographs. We finally get to see what Mayes' charming Bramasole house looks like, as well as the town of Cortona and the surrounding Tuscan countryside. If you haven't read Mayes' first two books, read them and have this one handy so you can see for yourself just how beautiful these houses, towns, and people are.

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