Showing results by author "Frances Mayes" in All Categories

Kit Raine, an American writer living in Tuscany, is working on a biography of her close friend, a complex woman who continues to cast a shadow on Kit’s own life. Her work is waylaid by the arrival of three women - Julia, Camille, and Susan - all of whom have launched a recent and spontaneous friendship that will uproot them completely and redirect their lives. Susan, the most adventurous of the three, has enticed them to subvert expectations of staid retirement by taking a lease on a big, beautiful house in Tuscany.

More than 20 years ago, Frances Mayes - widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer - introduced readers to a wondrous new world when she bought and restored an abandoned Tuscan villa called Bramasole. Under the Tuscan Sun inspired generations to embark on their own journeys.

Though Frances Mayes is known for her travels, she has always sought a sense of home wherever she goes. In this poetic testament to the power of place in our lives, Mayes reflects on the idea of home, from the earliest imprint of four walls to the startling discoveries of feeling the strange ease of homes abroad, friends’ homes, and even momentary homes that spark desires for other lives. From her travels across Italy to the American South, France, and Mexico, Mayes examines the connective tissue among them through the homes she’s inhabited.

Best-selling and beloved author Frances Mayes discovers the hidden pleasures of Italy in a sumptuous travel narrative that crisscrosses the country, with inventive new recipes celebrating Italian cuisine.

Frances Mayes offers her listeners a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona.

Filled with recipes from Mayes' Tuscan kitchen and written in the sensuous and evocative prose that has become her hallmark, Bella Tuscany is a celebration of the sweet life in Italy. Mayes writes of her continuing love affair with Italy: her deepening connection to the land, her flourishing friendships with local people, the joys of art, food, and wine, and the rewards and occasional heartbreaks of her villa's ongoing restoration.

Having spent her summers in Tuscany for the past several years, Frances Mayes relished the opportunity to experience the pleasures of primavera, an Italian spring. Bella Tuscany, a companion volume to Under the Tuscan Sun, is her passionate and lyrical account of her continuing love affair with Italy.

The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes revisits the turning points that defined her early years in Fitzgerald, Georgia. With her signature style and grace, Mayes explores the power of landscape, the idea of home, and the lasting force of a chaotic and loving family.

Does a great romance make a great marriage? Dara Willcox, up in New York for a weekend, meets Austin Clarke at an art gallery. If love at first sight can happen, it happens to them. These two vivid, ambitious people are on different trajectories—he’s British, working temporarily in New York. She’s set on law school. They don’t care. They will make their lives together happen. At their engagement dinner at Dara’s family home, her mother Lee sets a beautiful table and the family and close friends gather to celebrate.

A Year in the World is vintage Frances Mayes, a celebration of the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of quest. An ideal travel companion, Frances Mayes brings to the page the curiosity of an intrepid explorer, remarkable insights into the wonder of the everyday, and a compelling narrative style that entertains as it informs.

A Year in the World is vintage Frances Mayes, a celebration of the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of quest. An ideal travel companion, Frances Mayes brings to the page the curiosity of an intrepid explorer, remarkable insights into the wonder of the everyday, and a compelling narrative style that entertains as it informs.

In Tuscany celebrates the abundant pleasures of life in Italy as it is lived at home, at festivals, feasts, restaurants and markets, in the kitchen and on the piazza, in the vineyards, fields, and olive groves. Combining essays by Frances Mayes and a chapter by her husband, poet Edward Mayes, each of this book's five sections highlights a signature aspect of Tuscan life.

She watches from her terrazza as the three American women carry their luggage into the stone villa down the hill. Who are they, and what brings them to this Tuscan village so far from home? An expat herself, and with her own unfinished story, she can't help but question: will they find what they came for?

The Roman Forum, the Leaning Tower, the Piazza San Marco: these are the sights synonymous with Italy. But such landmarks only scratch the surface of this magical country's offerings. In See You in the Piazza, Frances Mayes introduces us to the Italy only the locals know, as she and her husband, Ed, eat and drink their way through all 20 regions - from Friuli to Sicily. Along the way, she seeks out the cultural and historic gems not found in traditional guidebooks.

In her celebrated memoirs of life in Tuscany, Frances Mayes writes masterfully about people in a powerful and shaping place. In Swan, her first novel, she has created an equally intimate world, rich with striking characters and intriguing twists of fate, that hearkens back to her southern roots.

When Frances Mayes fell in love with Tuscany and Bramasole, millions basked in the experience through her three best-selling memoirs. Now Frances and her husband, In Tuscany coauthor Edward, share the essence of Tuscan life as they have lived it, with specific ideas and inspiration for listeners stateside to bring the beauty and spirit of Tuscany into their own home decor, meals, gardens, entertaining and, most important, outlook on life.

Trojice žen odmítne strávit zbytek života v "domově důchodců" a rozhodne se, že si chtějí ještě užít. Pronajmou si proto starý kamenný dům v Itálii. Strávit rok v Itálii, pít víno, cestovat a potkávat nové přátele. K tomu se rozhodne trojice žen, které odmítnou jen usedle dožít. Vyberou úspory a pronajmou si starý kamenný dům v Toskánsku. Jejich sousedkou je americká spisovatelka, která na venkově pracuje na biografii své blízké přítelkyně.

Pozvánka do míst, kde autorka našla nový domov, přináší popisy toskánských městeček, zvyků, umění a všemožných vůní vycházející z místních receptů Vydala se do Itálie, kde spolu s přítelem zakoupili opuštěnou usedlost a našli v ní domov. Výročí dvou dekád strávených v Bramasole přivedlo autorku k dalším zápiskům o jejím sžívání se s toskánskou krajinou, historií, kuchyní a životním stylem. Co ji přimělo k navázání až překvapivě hlubokého vztahu s místní krajinou, jejími obyvateli a způsobem života?