By Frances Mayes
Broadway
Hardcover, Audio CD (Abridged) and Large Print Editions

What would it be like to live in another country? Would it feel like home? Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, tries to discover how one could feel at home in the different places she and her husband visit.

The whole idea of “feeling at home” suggests that an individual needs to discover the in-depth reality of the people, culture and everyday life experiences of each destination. What fun Mayes has as she processes each experience with wonder.

Delving into the history, along with looking through the eyes of poets and writers from these places, she experiences a bit of the past and present.

Mayes would make a wonderful food critic, as her description of the large variety of cuisine she experienced makes drooling from the reader a possibility. The tapas tasted throughout Italy, rissoles in Lisbon or food passed around on the flight to Naples is a gourmet experience for the reader.

A Year in the World Excerpt Difficult to find, the small pousada is one of our favorite places we've ever stayed, partly because it opens onto a praca of pleasing dimensions and has the same austere comfort and style of the others, but mainly because of the waiter who tells us, when we say how much we love Portugal, "My country is very small but very much." ©2006 Frances Mayes Published with permission from Broadway

Whether Mayes and her husband stay in castles, rented houses, hotels, monasteries, homes of people or are cruising to their destination, the delightful experience is thoroughly shared with the reader. It’s fun to share in the shopping experiences and see what souvenirs Mayes picks up in different markets and the reasons she and her husband want the items. Treasures they find include a five-pound book from a museum in Madrid, CD of flamenco music in Sevilla, different foods or seasonings, tiles and animal skins.

Travel adventures include Andalucia, Portugal, Naples, Taormina, Italy, Fez, Burgundy, The British Isles, Islands of Greece, Crete and Mani, Scotland, Turkey’s Lycian Coast, Capri and Mantova. These are not in chronological order but listed as separate vacations. There is little mention of price for these trips. That may have been for the purpose of not marring the dreamy image of the freedom to go and do whatever an individual desires.

Dip into this delightful escape and be refreshed as you feel more at home…away from it all.

Bookworm's Briefing
Get ready to escape on a nice long vacation. Feel at home in wonderful places around the world as you turn each page discovering the beauty of daily life abroad.