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Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy
by: Frances Mayes

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9780553812503
ISBN: 0553812505
Label: Bantam Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Bantam Books Ltd
Number Of Pages: 318
Publication Date: April 06, 2000
Publisher: Bantam Books Ltd
Studio: Bantam Books Ltd
Sales Rank: 74078

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Vanilla Beans and Brodo: Real Life in the Hills of Tuscany

Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Often the most fascinating memoirs are written by people who seem to be quite unaware that they are actually monsters. Frances Mayes' entertainingly egocentric Bella Tuscany, the sequel to her best-selling Under the Tuscan Sun, nudges into this category. Like its predecessor, a lyrical account of an American teacher of creative writing's insertion of herself into Tuscan life and the Tuscan landscape, Bella Tuscany (shouldn't that be Bella Toscana, or is something to be inferred about the intended readership?) is a sustained, ecstatic trill of cypresses, dusty, immemorial hillsides and tile-roofed hill towns. With hunky husband Ed, Frances restores her farmhouse, plants flowers and grows vegetables, cooks, travels and generally swans about Italy, in the process transforming it into a vehicle for her glowing sensibilities. Occasionally she speculates briefly about those she encounters on the way--about the old farmers who tend her olive trees, about the Nigerian prostitutes surreally stationed along a lonely rural road by the Russian mafia--but the beam of her attention barely flickers. There is a telling moment early on: she looks out of the window; the landscape reveals itself for her to love. It is as though the whole of Tuscany, no, the whole of Italy is laid out for her benefit, for those exquisite Martha Stewart moments. And people are so kind: they just can't resist bestowing gifts on her. The lady at the nursery rushes out with a plant. The shy owner of the perfumery shop in town turns out to have paid for her cappuccino. Anselmo who manages their vegetable garden presents them with his wine-press. "This gentle courtesy happens frequently." Far more than any possible reader, she is an enthralled spectator of the pageant of her gorgeous life, which she is generous enough to share. One doesn't begrudge it her one bit. One reads, fascinated, then makes one's holiday plans for somewhere else. --Robin Davidson

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Makes you want to return to Italy
A return to the author's senses-filled life in Tuscany. As wonderfully evocative as its predecessor. I think some of the reviews here are missing the point - this is clearly written with the intention of being a fairly lightweight, but sensually stimulating memoir, not a deep investigation into Tuscan or Italian society.

Rating:

- It's all about gardening!
Having seen the film "Under The Tuscan Sun" and throughly enjoyed it and being an avid Tim Parks fan (Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education) I was expecting another colourful book about expat life in Italy.
I am sorely disappointed with this book. There is maybe one mention of the Italian people in their town every two chapters and the majority of the book is dedicated to their trips away and their garden. The places they go on their trips away are interesting to a point, but hearing what they had for dinner, lunch every day is boring plus all the gardening talk is making this a really difficult book for me to finish.
Less gardening, more life!
I won't be buying her third book.

Rating:

- Lovely Dreamscapes into the Heart of Italy
Who has not dreamt of escaping to a colorful villa in Europe, preferably Provence (France), Tuscany in Italy or some obscure litle hillside in Central Europe? Frances Mays did just that! She describes the delicious details of this idyllic existence in this precious and charming book.Her sensitive, seductive descriptions are irresisible reading.

The reader is introduced to the sights, sounds, and smells of this magnificent dreamy region of the world. The book is interspersed with Italian phrases, increasing the allure of her exotic choice for a second home, Tuscany, Italy. All the senses of the reader are aroused into full alert by the aroma of freshly baked bread, the smell of newly turned earth awaiting seeds for the vegetable garden, ... Read More:

Rating:

- pretentious, mannered and tedious
I found myself quite unable to read more than 50 pages of this book. The author is incredibly self important, condescending, utterly humourless, and has no real insight into the people around her. I love Italy, and was really looking forward to reading one of those winsome, local colour books, but this is all "me me me". Really disappointing.

Rating:

- Bella Tuscany ? - only sometimes in this book
I have just finished reading Bella Tuscany during our family holiday in the hills east of Florence. 2 years ago at the same old Tuscan farmhouse, I read and thoroughly enjoyed the first book Under The Tuscan Sun. This follow up started off reasonably well but by half way it began to loose its grip on me. Being in Italy I could relate to quite a few of the passages but bagan to wonder what the purpose of this book was. Jumping back and forth across the Atlantic, from present to past, by the end I realised that one third of the text should have been in the first and the rest was simple padding out. The recipes especially are a waste of pages particularly those from the deep south of the US. One passage that summed it all up for me was the section about ... Read More:

Books : Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy