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Title: Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted by Annie Hawes ISBN: 0-06-095811-1 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.44 (36 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Another engaging expatriate memoir
Comment: If you're a fan of Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes, and Chris Stewart, add Annie Hawes to your reading list. At first skeptical about the subject ("Not ANOTHER book about moving abroad and fixing up an old house in the country!"), I was immediately enchanted by Hawes's take on it. Her style is closer to Mayle than Mayes, mostly because of her wonderful British wit and turning of a phrase, so Italy is described in a different way; and her rendering of the rural landscape and its inhabitants match Stewart's in detail and affection. Even if you've read a lot of books on Italy and expats living in sunny Mediterranean climes, crack "Extra Virgin". You won't be disappointed!
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful Affectionate Tale
Comment: Over the course of the past couple of years several of my friends have moved to Italy. One is an expat returning to Italy and the other is an american transplant.
Annie Hawes story of her time in Liguria is probably one of the most "real" expats in Italy stories I have ever read. She isn't rich and doesn't have 1/2 a million to pour into creating a showpiece. She buys a ramshackle farm house and to this day its still pretty ramshackle (course if this book hits the best seller list who knows?).
Anne Hawes is living my dream. She writes of her day to day experiences. Some of the same things that she experiences have happened to my friends. I feel like she is doing just what I would do. I'd go exploring broken down houses. If somebody offered me a smoking deal I'd probably buy it and then try to work out how to live there at least part of the year.
Anne Hawes writes with affection and consideration for her friends and neighbors. Her Italy life and her Italy house are built on this foundation of respect and affection. I only hope that when my "Italy life" happens it is half as full as Anne's.
Rating: 4
Summary: Slow start, but riches follow.
Comment: I read this book on a recommendation from a casual acquaintance and, despite the book's slow start, I'm glad I hung in there and gave it a chance.
The beginning of the book shows Annie Hawes and her sister being swept along by the customs of daily Ligurian life. They bumble around amiably, and before long, they find themselves buying a broken-down house.
The book starts to get interesting once the women are settled in the house and begin to cultivate relationships with the townspeople, Ligurian peasants who are charming and maddening by turns. Much is made of farming and food -- particularly the growing of olives and the process by which olive oil is made.
The sisters' house is up a treacherous pathway, and we're told stories of years' worth of struggle to find a decent car, build a staircase connecting the floors of the house, hook up running water. These stories are told not with "money pit"-like out-and-out humor, but with a lightheartedness and a unique respect for preserving the rustic condition and context of the sisters' home.
Even after the women have been living in Liguria for years, they are still regarded somewhat as _stranieri_, strangers, foreigners with odd ways. Yet they are trusted enough to be welcomed into homes all over the village. They learn the ways of the "hanky-headed" olive-farming men and get used to being mourned over for not having any husbands to work in the fields for them.
The book takes place over a long period of time and, in that expanse, we see the Ligurian village go from a backwater to a flourishing center of olive oil production. We see Italian politics change, though not easily. We see the womens' friends grow old, move on, pass away.
The dry English humor (I loved the Capital Letters that another reviewer found annoying) and heartfelt storytelling made me feel as though I had been welcomed into the village.
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Title: An Italian Affair by Laura Fraser ISBN: 0375724850 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 07 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Pasquale's Nose: Idle Days in an Italian Town by Michael Rips ISBN: 0316748641 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance by Marlena De Blasi ISBN: 0345457641 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Hills of Tuscany: A New Life in an Old Land by Ferenc Mate ISBN: 0385334419 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 12 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: A Valley in Italy: The Many Seasons of a Villa in Umbria by Lisa St. Aubin De Teran ISBN: 0060926198 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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