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9780767929820

Every Day in Tuscany

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780767929820

  • ISBN10:

    0767929829

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Copyright: 2010-03-09
  • Publisher: Broadway Books

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Supplemental Materials

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Summary

In this sequel to her "New York Times" bestsellers "Under the Tuscan Sun" and "Bella Tuscany," the celebrated bard of Tuscany ("New York Times") lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with the region's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.

Author Biography

In addition to her Tuscany memoirs, Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, Frances Mayes is the author of the travel memoir A Year in the World; the illustrated books In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany HomeSwan, a novel; The Discovery of Poetry, a text for readers; and five books of poetry.  She divides her time between homes in Italy and North Carolina.  Visit France Mayes’s blog at www.francesmayesbooks.com.

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Excerpts

Buongiorno, Luca     In winter-cold blue light, the bells of Cortona ring louder. The cold iron clapper hitting the frozen bell produces clear, shocked, hard gongs that reverberate in the heads of us frozen ones in the piazza, ringing in our skulls and down to our heels, strikingthe paving stones. In leafy summer, when softened air diffuses the bells, the clarion call accompanies but does not insist; the bells remind, punctuate, inspire. As a benison to the day, the reverberations settle on those nursing cappuccino in the piazza, thenfade, sending last vibrations out to the circling swallows. But in winter, the solitary sounds feel more personal, as though they ring especially for you. I even can feel the sound waves in my teeth as I smile my umpteenth greeting of the morning.   Returning in early March, I'm thrilled to see my friends in the piazza. We greet each other as though I have been gone for a year instead of four months. I love the first trip back into town after an absence. I walk every street, assessing the state ofthe union. What has changed, who has traveled to Brazil, what's on display at the vegetable market, who has married, died, moved to the country? What's on exhibit at the museum? Half of an enormous cow hangs by a hook in the butcher's, a square of paper towelon the floor to catch the last three splats of blood. Under neon, red meat in the cases reflects a lavender light on the faces of two venerable signoras leaning in to inspect today's veal cheeks and pork roasts. Orange lilies against the glass steam the flowershop window with their hothouse breath, and there's Mario, a blur among them, arranging a row of primroses.   Winter returns Cortona to its original self. The merchants along the main street complain that all winter long the town feels dead. Non c'e nessuno. There's no one. They wonder if the tourists will return this year. "The dollar is broken, the euro likea hot air balloon," Fabrizio says as he whooshes the imaginary balloon into the sky, then spirals his hands. I visualize a striped balloon heading toward Mars. In Italian, part of every conversation takes place without words. A woman on her cell phone in thepiazza paces, gestures, stops, slings back her head, paces again. She says grazie fifteen times, laughs. She's on stage, a monologue actor. When she hangs up, she snaps shut the phone, shoves it in her enormous borsa, and charges ahead toward her shopping.   I pause to look at shoes, then sweaters. "That war of yours. It's costing the whole world," Daria scolds, as though I personally have bombed Iraq. She's sweeping off her already clean threshold. They forget that when the lira converted to the euro, almosteveryone abruptly raised their prices; some simply started charging in euros the same amount they'd charged in lire, effectively doubling the cost of their pizza, shirts, coffee, albums, and pasta. Since Italian wages hardly have moved, most people today arefeeling more than a pinch. "Not to worry," our friend Arturo says. "There are two Italies. One economy in sight and another whole economy out of sight. Everyone has their own ways never revealed to the statisticians. You get paid in cash--nobody knows." This,I think, applies more to independent work and less to the shop owners, who have to give receipts. If I walk out of the bar with no receipt for my panino, the Guardia di Finanzia could fine the owner and me. When I buy a chicken, I am astonished--14.65 euros--twenty-threedollars at the current exchange rate. I think of the reconstruction South prices after the Civil War. What is happening to our country? Our dollar is debole, weak, shockingly so.   With the wind that must have originated in the snowy Alps, thirty-five degrees feels like zero. "Che bello, you have returned before the swallows," Lina says. Because it is Women's Day, three people give me sprays of mimosa, which I love for its brilliantyellow in the stony gray air. Massimo offers coffee

Excerpted from Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life by Frances Mayes
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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