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.Extra Virgin: Amongst the Olive Groves of Liguria

by: Annie Hawes

April 26, 2001
what a lovely read this is, nicely suprising & not at all like the usual "year in a foreign country" type stuff. The stories of the Ligurian way of thinking "no swimming in the sea except in the height of summer - this brings on Flu"......"germans who horror of horror drink wine WITHOUT FOOD!!! GASP GASP"...."bottled wine is akin to poison & not even made from grapes".......Its also interesting that this was set many many years ago...before we all ate olive oil/sundried tomatoes/olives/tomatoes on the vine etc etc as a matter of course....funny & laigh out loud...i have since bought her next book & will be enjoying that very soon
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.Journey to the South

by: Annie Hawes

July 07, 2005
I really enjoyed this latest offering from Annie Hawes. Her wonderful descriptions of the people she met in Calabria are so realistic. Maybe it is because I now live in Italy but much of her writing seemed relevant to life here in Lazio. I have to say though I do wonder how some of the personalities featured would react if they were ever to read about themselves!!

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.A Handful of Honey: Away to the Palm Groves of Morocco and Algeria

by: Annie Hawes

April 04, 2008
Thoroughly enjoyable read. I find Annie Hawes impressive in the extreme in that she really knows her subject and her reader! I loved my travels with her but sadly missed the de Giglio family and all her Italian friends. I learned an awful lot about women of Islam and how they cope with the extremes of this religion. Annie presents a book which is humourous and yet holds the dignity of the way of life and customs of the land she travels in.
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.Vanilla Beans and Brodo: Real Life in the Hills of Tuscany

by: Isabella Dusi

May 07, 2002
I really found this book self-absorbed and trivial and therefore incredibly annoying. If you know anything at all about beautiful, interesting Tuscany it adds nothing further to your experience or understanding, and if you don't know the place then it gives you nothing either. It's not well-written and the writer makes inexcusable and elementary errors of Italian. Of all the many "ex-pat living the simple life in the Mediterranean" books on the market this is not one that I can say has anything at all to recommend it. I would give it 0 stars if I could.
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.A Small Place in Italy

by: Eric Newby

June 09, 1995
The urge to escape the comforts, routine and refinements of our living conditions to somewhere more challenging, primitive and raw is something that many of us feel - especially those who read books. The books we read can sometimes stimulate the urge, sometimes satisfy it. All I ask of such books is that the author can write well and that he is not boastful.

Eric Newby, especially in "A Small Place in Italy", meets these requirements admirably. Indeed, he ranks for me as a travel writer of near genius. He was almost 50 years old when he and his Italian born wife Wanda took up permanent residence in a ruined farmhouse in northern Italy. His account of the trials and tribulations that followed, the neighbours and the locality, is told in this ... Read More:
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.Bel Vino: A Year of Sundrenched Pleasure Among the Vines of Tuscany

by: Isabella Dusi

May 04, 2004
A continuation of the story started in Vanilla Beans and Brodo, which to obtain background knowledge of Montalcino and its residents; it is advisable to read first.
It does not matter if you have not done so because I noticed that some of the information is repeated in Bel Vino.
This time the author's main theme is her interest in trying to untangle the story of Brunello di Montalcino from the facts fiction and fables. It is a fascinating story of change and where once the contadini(farmers)once worked the land for rich families, they now produce wine on land that they own themselves.

I enjoyed this and it was certainly worth reading, but personally I did not think it was as good as the first book about Isabella and Luigi's life in Montalcino. ... Read More:
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.Italian Neighbours: An Englishman in Verona

by: Tim Parks

May 03, 2001
Tim Parks has a habit of writing on subjects I'm fascinated by - Italy, football, education - so it's a bit odd that I tend to find his books hard-going and uninspiring. A Season in Verona seemed to me the work of a man who had no real enthusiasm for football, and Italian Neighbours reads like the diatribe of a bitter foreigner against a Veneto suburb and its inhabitants.

I believe Parks is trying to write an antidote to those travel books that come over all misty-eyed about sunsets in Tuscany, and so on - and I'm all for that. But there's no balance here: the book goes into considerable detail (it is 30-40% overlong) about the numerous petty annoyances of life in Italy, but has very little to say about what makes the Veneto, or its people, interesting. As one reviewer ... Read More:
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.La Bella Vita: Life, Love and and Food in Southern Italy

by: V. Adamoli

March 08, 2006
I was given this book to read by a friend in England, and was totally taken by surprise - this is a wonderful book; vivid, truthful and entertaining.
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.The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society

by: Chris Stewart

May 26, 2006
This is the 3rd book in the series from Chris Stewart about his life in Spain. Although it suffers from comparisons with the previous 2 books, taken in isolation it is still a great read. It is full of humour and is an entertaining read.
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.An Italian Education

by: Tim Parks

May 03, 2001
I PUT THIS BOOK DOWN AFTER 30 PAGES ,IT WAS PUTTING ME TO SLEEP. I REALLY ENJOY GOOD READS ON LIFE IN ITALY, BUT THIS WAS JUST RUBBISH.
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