Product Description

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.

A companion volume to Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany is Frances Mayes's passionate and lyrical account of her continuing love affair with Italy. Now truly at home there, Mayes writes of her deepening connection to the land, her flourishing friendships with local people, the joys of art, food, and wine, and the rewards and occasional heartbreaks of her villa's ongoing restoration. It is also a memoir of a season of change, and of renewed possibility. As spring becomes summer she revives her lush gardens, meets the challenges of learning a new language, tours regions from Sicily to the Veneto, and faces transitions in her family life.  Filled with recipes from her Tuscan kitchen and written in the sensuous and evocative prose that has become her hallmark, Bella Tuscany is a celebration of the sweet life in Italy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52276 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-04
• Released on: 2000-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Amazon.com
Work's still not completely finished on Bramasole, the Tuscan house that California-based poet and bestselling author Frances Mayes bought a decade ago and has been fixing up every summer since. Nevertheless, in Bella Tuscany, she goes out--in search of Italy and Italian life. The sequel to Under the Tuscan Sun is awash with sensual discovery, from Sicilian markets with "rainbows of shining fish on ice" to the aqueous dream of Venice "shimmering in the diluted sunlight." Wherever she is, Mayes celebrates everyday rituals, such as picking wild asparagus, "dark spears poking out of the dirt ... stalks as thin as yarn" and driving through country rains, as "the green landscape smears across the windshield" for buffalo mozzarella and demijohns of sfuso--bulk wine kept fresh with a slick of olive oil on top. Mayes also ventures into the world of the locals, some "bent as a comma" and others throwing six-hour communion feasts where half a dozen cooks in a barn continually send out heaping platters of pasta with wild boar sauce, roasted lamb, and even the thigh of a giant cow--wrapping up the festivities with honeyed vin santo, grappa, and dancing to the accordion. Capturing the details that enrich the commonplace, in Bella Tuscany Mayes appears less like a visitor and more like someone discovering in Tuscany a real home and a real life. --Melissa Rossi

From Library Journal
Writing again about Tuscany, Mayes continues to acquaint readers with the delights of Italy. This book follows Under the Tuscan Sun (LJ 9/1/96), Mayess popular account of falling in love with Tuscany and purchasing an old villa for her summer vacations. Now Mayes, on sabbatical from her teaching position in San Francisco, is experiencing Italy in the early spring with her friend and soon-to-be-spouse, Ed. Together they continue work on their house, selecting plants for the garden, pots for the piazza, and tiles for the bathroom. In between projects, they find time to explore regions beyond Tuscany, including Sicily and Venice. Mayes writes with a poets attention to sensuous detail, whether describing a six-course meal (she provides recipes), a fresco in a little-known church, or the challenges of learning Italian. She describes village life with all its warmth, friendliness, and individuality, in sharp contrast to the growing impersonality and homogeneity of America. Recommended for all public libraries.
-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Listening to this memoir brings to mind the word ABUNDANCE. The author, who also narates, relates tales of an Italian spring and summer with such love and effervescence that it's impossible not to appreciate the tomatoes stacked in the kitchen or the rainbow of roses on the terraces. At first, the listener may be caught off-guard by Mayes's lovely Southern accent, but it becomes an essential part of her enthusiastic personality. Mayes revels in the details of Tuscan life: the food (never listen to this when hungry), the wine, the gardens, the people… This audiobook is a patch of sunshine on a dark day-- curl up with it and soak in the warmth. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Exquisite!
Mayes is a treat. I loved this book as much as her previous Italy book; can't understand the attacks herein, but it doesn't matter. I love all of the Italian references. The imagery is so powerful that it almost felt as though I were in Italy. It enriched my reading experience by teaching me the finer parts of Mediterranean culture -- and Mayes has done the same in a unique and memorable way. This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it to anyone without an ax slung over their shoulder.

A must read if you love Italy
This is a great book! It actually take you to a portal of Italy. Well written of Italian culture, Frances Mayes capture the bella of Italy. I love this book very much, I visited Italy before and I miss it so much. When I read this book, I feel that I am there again. I love the detail of it, I actually love when she talked about food, the market and the italian word with english beside it. I learned from the book.
If you love Italy, this is a must read.
One thing I agree with the other reader that if there's pictures and map included would make this book a plus. I really wants to see the pictures she mentioned and the map for my quick reference. I love the part she talked about mushroom and market with fresh food.

a diamond with some flaws
OK--Many of the customers who wrote previous reviews about Bella Tuscany have some valid complaints. It is several chapters too long and we do get tired of Mayes' whining. We have little pity for her trying to restore two houses at once and we don't need to hear about every meal and shopping excursion. It certainly does not surpass her first effort, "Under the Tuscan Sun." Still, as someone who has never been to Tuscany (or Italy for that matter), many of the descriptions in "Bella Tuscany" are little treasures. Who wouldn't want to live where you can go to one local farm for ricotta, another for pecorino romano and a third for wine? Or where Roman and Etruscan ruins are to be found in so many unsuspecting places? Or where fabulous meals can be made with only the simple ingredients you grow in your garden? Or where every small local church has a major work or art or two? I do have two recommendations that would have made this book more enjoyable; a map of Tuscany and Italy would have been helpful in identifying the many places Mayes visited. Also, I would have enjoyed more photographs other than those on the dust jacket. Maybe the few "teaser" pictures are to whet our appetite for her 3rd book, "In Tuscany." In any case, while this book has some character flaws, I think potential readers need to try to overlook these and to dig deeper for the jewel within.