BELLA TUSCANY: The Sweet Life in Italy by Frances Mayes

 

This book should be read in the wintertime when you want to imagine the Tuscan sun on your face. Or you can read it anytime! It's up to you.

 

I read it during the ending of winter when more snows had fallen here than usual. Towards the last pages I was able to sit in my own sun and feel its warmth as spring was emerging and the tulips my daughter gave me before Christmas began to poke their greenery out of the pots on the brick patio. By the very last page the red and yellow tulips were in full bloom, the little yellow daffodils and the light blue chionodoxa joined them and the pollen made me go inside!

 

As you all know this book is the next in line after Under The Tuscan Sun which was made into a movie. This one is also about the real life of Frances Mayes but also includes her husband, Ed. They go to Bramasole in Italy, their second home, during the summer months when they have a break from teaching. How lovely! Here they can relax and live according to the rising and setting of the sun. Here they can grow olives. They can live without the television and the hustle and bustle of San Francisco where they live for the rest of the year. But during some holidays a quick trip to breathe the Tuscan air fills them until they can get back.

 

Their  life here takes on a slower tempo.They can take daily journeys to enjoy the countryside and sample the wines whether homemade or from a winery. The pace is different. The lifestyle. The food. The people. The sun.

 

You'll want to go to Tuscany but if you can't you can at least imagine yourself there with Frances and her husband Ed. It seems their door is always open to friends but don't stay too long. They need their Tuscan space.

DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT by ANNE TYLER

 

This book was given to me by my sister to read after she finished it. We had gone to our fabulous Goodwill one day to stock up. Where else?!?!

 

As you can see this book has been loved. The corner is gone. The binding is soft as if many have curled the pages back on themselves in order to read it  one handed in bed. I normally do not do that to a book but in this case I did. It was already broken in.

 

The picture on the front makes this book seem like it is going to be cozy. There you are with your own cup of coffee in the morning or on a rainy afternoon, picturing yourself sitting at a white and red checked table getting ready to eat home cooked food. It will fill your stomach and radiate out to your toes making you feel loved.

 

Don't get to cozy with that thought! This book evolves and revolves around a very disfunctional family. The sensitive child grows up to own a restaurant which he renames The Homesick Restaurant for he is always and has been yearning for his family to be able to sit at the dinner table and get through a whole meal without anyone arguing and leaving. At least that's my take on it.

 

It's not exactly happy. But it's real and you want to see what happens. But don't think you'll leave this dinner table happy. But you may leave thankful that your family was not like this one.

 

I know I did!