Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy (Hardcover)

~ Frances Mayes (Author), Edward Mayes (Author), Steven Rothfeld (Photographer)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only those who love sitting through slides from other people's vacations are likely to warm to Mayes's latest, on the joys of owning a renovated Tuscan villa. Mayes's first book on the subject, Under the Tuscan Sun, sold two million copies and spawned a Hollywood film, but with each return visit to familiar territory (Bella Tuscany; In Tuscany) Mayes finds less fresh material. This work is a grab bag of guess-you-had-to-be-there anecdotes (Mayes devotes an entire paragraph to the activities of a wasp that flies into her study while she's writing) and suggestions for how readers can, as Mayes and her husband, Ed, do, live the good life in northern California and Italy. (Hint: it takes a lot of money.) The book includes 25 recipes, though few are specifically Tuscan. Instead, Mayes devotes space to Nancy Silverton's Italian Plum Tart (Silverton, founder of Los Angeles's Campanile restaurant, has her own villa one valley over) and several recipes of Ed's. The listing of Mayes's own "At Home in Tuscany Collection" of furniture at book's end adds to the coyly self-indulgent feel.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Mayes' In Tuscany (2000) is a glossy coffee-table volume that combines a cookbook, a guidebook, and Mayes' appreciative ruminations about Tuscan culture. With the help of her husband, poet Edward Mayes, she revisits much of the same material, but this title reads more like a lifestyle guide for Italophiles yearning to bring the Tuscan sun into their own homes. The loosely organized chapters focus on home and garden design, food, and entertaining in spreads accompanied by Steven Rothfeld's lavish photographs of villas, fields, and the Mayes' friends enjoying la dolce vita around the table. Some of Mayes' suggestions, such as her garden tips borrowed from the Medicis, may be out of reach for many readers. And a few recipes use ingredients that are hard to find stateside. But she offers plenty of accessible ideas as well, such as the rich colors and decorative scenes painted on many Tuscan walls. And most readers won't want this for the practical specifics; they'll merely enjoy the vicarious plunge into a relaxed, gracious culture that this, like all of Mayes' titles, offers. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; First edition. edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767917464
• ISBN-13: 978-0767917469
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #53,428 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Really Let Down by this book., December 5, 2005

By	puppy's gal - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

I was so excited when I ordered this book and so let down after getting it and looking it over. The cover is VERY deceptive. This is NOT a style/decorating book. This is the story of a couple renovating a wonderful old home in Tuscany. It is well written and at times charming and warm. It is also often quite boring reading about what stone to pick for the house and who they visited and what wine they drank. It almost seems as if the author were forcing another book out for publication!! There are VERY FEW photos...barely any really in the book. The photos present are of wine, friends, a few of the house and a few of home decor/furniture layout, and food. The photos are very striking and pretty....if you enjoy seeing their friends and not really getting any basic decorating ideas. There are about 30 recipes and photos of the food, as I said above. Some recipes are nice but I really didn't see anything new and inspiring. A good Italian cookbook would be a better investment. As for the cover....it is very deceptive to say the least since it focuses on a very pretty vignette: furniture, art, pottery and style of arrangement. This is most definitely NOT what this book is about. In fact: I found the cover to be the best part of the book. I decided to return it and look for a better book really focusing on design. The author clearly loves Tuscany and if you want a nicely written and warm hearted book to read about hers and her husband's story of renovation, friends and their love of food, wine and Tuscany then you will like this book. It is not a picture book at all but rather a reading book with a story that seems rather forced and often VERY VERY boring and drawn out for the purpose of publication.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars best feature -front cover, July 6, 2005

By	N. Fairbairn "italiaphile" (port angeles, wa USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

very disappointing publication-suggest you save your money and check it out of the library before making a decision-the front cover was deceptive in its allure to those looking for a creative nudge in decorating tuscany style. but the most chilling part of this book,for me, was a revealing paragraph at the top of page 106 'quote' Given that the farmers probably will not be returning.I begin to plot new purposes for the hundreds of borghi in the italian hills: music camps,artists' colonies,hospices, religious retreat centers. After all,easily taking the past into the future is part or the italian genius for living.'unquote'... well, there goes he neighborhood! i'm just thankful i got to see Tuscany before the Mayes' makeover of the whole region --some people just can't leave rustic charm alone!!...norma

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Enough already!!, August 18, 2005

By	Torile - See all my reviews

In my opinion Ms. Mayes is doing for the literary world what Thomas Kincaid has done for art.

I was absolutely entranced with Italy after reading UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN.........and equally so with BELLA TUSCANY. I must admit that while I truly enjoyed the photographs contained in IN TUSCANY I was less than satisfied with the written content. I feel that the passion Ms. Mayes felt with her first book, and so openly shared with the readers, has wained with each successive book and she is nothing but commerical at this point.

I feel she has allowed celebrity and money to corrupt her art ..... much the same as Mr. Kincaid. So, when will we see the Bramasole tea towels or the Cortona coasters???