Frances Mayes

at home in Italy

Under the Tuscan sun

Ginebra. 

When I was a little girl I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I’d just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me.

Laura Hillenbrand

Retraces the journey of Seabiscuit, a horse with crooked legs and a pathetic tail that made racing history in 1938, thanks to the efforts of a trainer, owner, and jockey who transformed a bottom-level racehorse into a legend.

an American legend

Seabiscuit

Sarah Sammis

It's a well written history of Seabiscuit but after a while it lost my interest. For someone with more passion about horses and race horses in particular, this would be quite a page turner.

Laura Mauler

Hmmm. Well I loved most of it, but the last couple chapters have nothing to do with anything, certainly nothing to do with renovating a house. So it ended on a weak note, which I am trying not to let overshadow the rest of the book.

Michal Stone

This was a really good book, but the language was really hard to understand. It was totally worth it, though!!

Erin Noel

If you're looking for the Diane Lane version of Under the Tuscan Sun within these pages, you'll be sorely disappointed, as this is not a plot driven novel so much as beautiful literary cookbook and home renovation journal. Mayes takes the reader deep into the sensorial experiences of Tuscany and throws in at least 20 amazing recipes inspired by her very own garden (some of which I'm now dying to try). Pears in Mascarpone Custard anyone?

Amber Laha

What makes Hillenbrand a great author is her ability to take something that could be tedious, which horse racing is on paper, and make it into a grand story not only about the horse but about the people connected to that horse. 

I don't think that you can really write a book wherein you'll have to deal with the stats of horse racing and make it not tedious at all, for there were times where I was dragging my feet and finding myself struggling. Yes, tedious at times, but she created a story and the people came alive for me.

I did think that she inferred things at times and there was at least once where I questioned her, which makes me wonder about other things. This is her first book, so I didn't expect it to be as great as Unbroken, but I didn't expect to question. So, although it does get 4 stars, it should have gotten 5 if it hadn't been for the questioning.

Judy Hudgins

the book that started me on reading travel logs

Kali Nichta

I started this book with a desire to get another view of the homeland of my father's family. I didn't really get that. Instead, it was more a musing on the author's adventure of renovating a house and finding herself at home in Italy. This is not a terrible thing but, as another reviewer noted, was not terribly revelatory. Indeed, the parts of the book that actually follow the author on trips out and around Italy were... kind of boring. 

Still, it's a nice read if you are one who fantasizes about living in a big, sunny house in a beautiful locale.

Under the Tuscan sun at home in Italy

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