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.
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