Under the Tuscan Sun or Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home In Italy

Author: Frances Mayes

Now in paperback, the #1 San Francisco Chronicle bestseller that is an enchanting and lyrical look at the life, the traditions, and the cuisine of Tuscany, in the spirit of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence.



Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table.

Library Journal

Frances Mayes made a name for herself writing about her love affair with Tuscany, where she bought and refurbished an abandoned villa. She tells the full story in Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy (Broadway. 1997. ISBN 0-7679-0038-3. pap. $15); Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy (Broadway. 2000. ISBN 0-7679-0284-X. pap. $15); and In Tuscany (Broadway. 2000. ISBN 0-7679-0535-0. $35).

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Read also Lighting the Lamp of Wisdom or Recovery from Smoking

Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass

Author: Isak Dinesen

With classic simplicity and a painter's feeling for atmosphere and detail, Isak Dinesen tells of the years she spent from 1914 to 1931 managing a coffee plantation in Kenya.

John Updike

Her main memoir, ''Out of Africa,'' published in 1937, has been called the greatest pastoral romance of modern times....Enter a deliciously described world of sharply painted, dramatically costumed heroes and heroines posing, with many a spectacular gesture and eloquent aria, in magnificent landscapes maintained by invisible hands as a kind of huge stage set....hough Isak Dinesen's leisurely and ornate anecdotes, which she furnishes with just enough historical touches to make the stage firm, have something in them of the visionary and the artificial, they are not escapist. From the sweeping flood of the first story to the casual and savage murder of the last, they face pain and loss with the brisk familiarity of one who has amply known both, and force us to face them, too. Far from hollow and devoid of a moral, the tales insistently strive to inculcate a moral stance....Intoxication figures frequently in Isak Dinesen's work, and mercilessness was part of the storyteller's art as she construed it: the story must pursue its end without undue compassion for its characters. Combat lies closer than compassion to the secret of ''Seven Gothic Tales,'' and its exhilaration is their contagious mood. -- New York Times

What People Are Saying

Eudora Welty
"True to her credo the storyteller's story, her tales are...grips out of, rather than into, an extraordinary mind."