1 comments about Carrara: The Marble Quarries of Tusany.

1. This gorgeous book is about the centuries-long process of destroying a body of rock. Every picture shows a landscape or an interior white with the dust of Carrara's exceptionally pure marble; stonecutters white with the dust; even some pictures where you can't tell whether it's fog or dust in the air, or whether it's snow or dust on the rooftops. Carrara is the source of marble for some of the most revered works of sculpture in the Western canon: Michelangelo's David and the Pieta; Bernini's busts, St. Teresa, and hundreds more. To see it all as essentially an industrial process, and to see the people who have given their lives to quarrying this rock, is beautiful, bitter, and moving. There's also a great essay at the back by an Australian anthropologist, which is well worth the read.

No comments about Must-See Italy.

No comments about Fodor's Florence's 25 Best, 7th Edition (25 Best).

2 comments about Venice &North-East Italy (Charming Small Hotel Guides).

1. I rated this 3 stars only because this page did not note the full title, leading me to beleive this was a tour book. It is a book on small hotels and B&Bs in NE Italy. Nice, but not what I wanted.



2. Like the writer above, I also bought the book expecting a travel guide. . .

   (It's a great hotel book, but not what I expected.)

No comments about Falling Palace.

No comments about The Travellers' Guide to Elba & The Tuscan Archipelago.

5 comments about Rome (Pallas Guides).

1. Brilliant! I've been to Rome five times with this book... although it was concise enough to give me an excellent overview even by the first time.



2. Did you ever run across a guidebook that, at the same time, 1) gives you a brilliantly clever and comprehensive choice of information about the sites and 2) allows you to get to each site in the easiest, quickest way?
   
   I didn't, until I found "Rome" by Mauro Lucentini. That double record is especially remarkable in a city like Rome, where the various sights may have lifespans of up to 2,800 years requiring equally monumental explanations, and/or be concealed into corners of a labyrinthine ancient habitat, where you can easily lose your way. With 700-plus pages, Lucentini's book may be a bit heavy to carry, but it is an incredible pleasure to read, and you will be thankful for each page, so fascinating is every bit of the information provided - no other Roman guide comes even close to the amount of historic or artistic background supplied - and for the fact that it will lead you in front of every item by the hand.
   
   Also, the book is structured in such a way that, if you care doing it, you are able to read a good half of it and digest quite a lot of information even before you leave for your destination, This is a quality no other guidebook I know possesses, at least not to such an extent.



3. Terrific Book. Detailed descriptions of this glorious city. Every traveler to Rome should use it as reference.



4. This book is a wonderful foray into the many aspects and history of Rome, and can be enjoyed sitting in New York, as well as walking in Rome. I've taken many of the walks, and the book is a chatty, fun, and erudite companion, pointing out all of the (almost) hidden traces of centuries past. A must for travelers in Italy (or just in your armchair)!



5. I have a shelf full of guides to Rome but when I bought this last year I threw away the rest of the shelf. It is simply fantastic. I have been a book reviewer for thirty years and never thought I would 'go overboard' about a book but this is everything I wanted. Personal, informed, entertaining, reliable, surprising, instructive, accessible, logical, practical.......I run out of words. It's great to read before during and after you visit Rome - only drawback is it's too bulky to carry around with you but take notes! Use it as your bible. Rome (Pallas Guides)

5 comments about The Companion Guide to Florence (Companion Guides).

1. A lot of things began in Florence. The way businesses keep their books, the way sovereign states relate to each other, the way people use art to tell stories and create beauty. These things and many more elements of modern society have their origins in this smallish Tuscan city. These impulses were born in the middle of the last millenium - during a century or so when Florence blossomed as an intellectual and artistic supernova of the Italian Renaissance. Today, Florence remains densely packed with the memories of that time. Eve Borsook's "THE COMPANION GUIDE TO FLORENCE" is the key to the city. In addition to all the names, dates, places of history, Borsook skillfully weaves in meaning and context so that you may not only know who painted what fresco in which church - but why it remains meaningful 500 years down the road. You can go to Florence to shop for many beautiful Italian creations. But with this book, you can gain a clear appreciation about why the names and images from this amazing city's glorious past still resonate in our lives today.



2. A lot of things began in Renaissance Florence: the way businesses keep their books, the way sovereign states relate to each other, the way people use art to tell stories and create beauty. These things and many more elements of modern society have their origins in this smallish Tuscan city. These impulses were born in the middle of the last millenium - during the century or so when Florence blossomed as the intellectual and artistic supernova of the Italian Renaissance. Today, Florence remains densely packed with the memories of that time. Eve Borsook's "THE COMPANION GUIDE TO FLORENCE" is the key to the city. In addition to all the names, dates, places of history, Borsook skillfully weaves in meaning and context so that you may know who painted what fresco in which church - but why it remains meaningful 500 years down the road. You can go to Florence to shop for many beautiful Italian creations. But with this book, you can gain a clear appreciation about why the names,images and achievements from this amazing city's glorious past still resonate in our lives today.



3. A lot of things began in Renaissance Florence: the way businesses keep their books, the way sovereign states relate to each other, the way people use art to tell stories and create beauty. These things and many more elements of modern society have their origins in this smallish Tuscan city. These impulses were born in the middle of the last millenium - during the century or so when Florence blossomed as the intellectual and artistic supernova of the Italian Renaissance. Today, Florence remains densely packed with the memories of that time. Eve Borsook's "THE COMPANION GUIDE TO FLORENCE" is the key to the city. In addition to all the names, dates, places of history, Borsook skillfully weaves in meaning and context so that you may know who painted what fresco in which church - but why it remains meaningful 500 years down the road. You can go to Florence to shop for many beautiful Italian creations. But with this book, you can gain a clear appreciation about why the names,images and achievements from this amazing city's glorious past still resonate in our lives today.



4. I lived in Florence as a full time tourist for a year in the early eighties. I could divide my year into before and after finding this book; it's that good. The maps reveal every nook and cranny, helping you to see the hidden wonders right before your eyes in this city that is so immensely rich in wonders. The recommended walking tours make your time more meaningful, as the buildings and artwork become not only isolated splendors, but also pieces of the history of this remarkable city. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the latest edition so that I can plan a return visit for next year. Buy yours early and plan your time, and you will have a visit beyond what even the best tour guide could ever offer. Buon viaggio!



5. Borsook offers a comprehensive overview of the history and culture of the cradle of the Renaissance, and a guide to the many nooks and crannys of old Florence. This book details all the important venues open to the public, plus many that are not. It gives invaluable insight into the context of the city, and site maps to all the important works of art and science.
   
   I read this book before a recent trip to Florence, using it to plan the visit. I left it home, thinking it too heavy to tote along. I won't make that mistake when we return. Forget the guidebooks; Borsook is all you need to enjoy Florence.

5 comments about The Girl's Guide to Traveling Solo.

1. This was one of the best book I ever read, both funny and very entertaining, found myself laughing out loud. I couldn't put the book down, I was only disappointed when it finished, next time I hope she takes a longer journey. Great job!!!!



2. The book was fabulous. The author made me feel that I was traveling along side with her in every quest. I gave it a rate of 5 because from the very first page to very last it kept my adrenaline going and my spirits very high. (very few books that I have read have been able to do that to me)
   Looking forward to your next adventure and hoping you will share them with your readers.



3. As someone who considers herself reasonably well-read and well-traveled, this book is an insult to travel guides. As a woman, this book was also offensive due to the authors advocacy of hooking up with a guy while traveling, then using him to leach free lodging, meals and entertainment. There is also a theme of alcohol use as an excuse for her poor decision-making.
   
   If you enjoy stories about vacation romances, this book may be appealing. But if you are seeking a resource as a woman traveling alone, please don't waste your money or indeed the 2 hours needed to breeze through it.



4. Easy read about her personal trip to Italy with added tips and advice.I was hoping there would be more extensive information, rather than just the basics.



5. This is a memoir, not serious travel advice for women traveling alone. Actually provides examples of what not to do! Additionally, not well written or even interesting reading. This is the first book I have ever put in the recycling bin.

5 comments about Mother Tongue: An American Life in Italy.

1. If ranked on the scale of self-indulgence, this book beats "Under the Tuscan Sun" hands down, and this is not praise for Frances Mayes. On the strength of the too-kind-by-half editorial and customer reviews on this page, I bought this book hoping for an unromanticized picture of living in Italy. I got instead a maundering exercise in microscopic navel contemplation. Worse, every time a promising detail appears it somehow turns into an unwelcome sermon. This unpleasantly disjointed book veers off into irrelevancy so often and so distractedly one wonders if the author wouldn't benefit from a course of Ritalin therapy. It's true that there are scattered here and there tiny passages of insight into being in Italy as something other than a tourist, but they are too few, and frequently so obscure that I had to read passages three times to wring any meaning at all out of them. Three-quarters of the way through, the conviction that I was searching for pennies in a pigsty overcame my determination to slog through somehow: it just wasn't worth the effort. I'm not proposing this should have been something so prosaic as a travelogue; I was looking for the inner voice as well as practical knowledge. As someone who has studied in and traveled to Italy many times, I've warily considered moving there, and have sought out books that can provide real insight into living in Italy from an expatriate's perspective. "Tuscan Sun" wasn't it, because it really wasn't about living in Italy at all, and despite its relentless charm it was superficial and unconvincing. Equally unwelcome, though, are the dime-store philosophizing, the fractured polemics and the arty but artless syntactical histrionics of this work, particularly since there's so little real information contained in it.



2. This book examines related and ramifying themes: a complex accomodation to the writer's life abroad in her second marriage to a gifted Italian scientist, the life of her late Italian mother-in-law, the rewards and challenges of raising an American-born daughter in Italy, and the history of Parma as an expatriate discovers it. through an idiosyncratic and utterly charming progression of chapters. The gifted poet and essayist behind these reflections emerges in a self-portrait unobtrusively yet indelibly. Life and death challenge her, an adopted country both welcomes and resists her: a sensibility of great depth and nuance undergoes reshaping in the event. Wallis Wilde-Menozzi's subsequent book of lyrics, BEES AND OTHER POEMS (2001), carries this sensibility into free verse of distinction and agile grace. The prose here, like the poems printed subsequently, manifest an integral stylist, who inquires with sharp eye and open heart, and makes the connections that want to be made, both the elusive and the penetrating ones. A distinguished and inventive book.

   John Peck




3. The style is very disappointing, heavy and full of redundant notes. There are three main -and disconnected- threads: the city of Parma, her experiences in Italy and her "lectures" about Italian/American lifestyle.
   1) PARMA: all the well known information about the history of Parma and its famous citizens (from the middle ages to Attilio Bertolucci)spread every three pages made the reading unbearable;
   2)PERSONAL EXPERIENCES: probably the most interesting subject, but, unfortunately, she gets lost in the narration of too many details without focusing on and the impact and the understanding of the Italian reality;
   3)HER LECTURES: here is the most disapponting point because of her superficial judgments about italian culture, traditions and institutions. Instead of describing the "how" and "why" she indulges in old stereotypes and boring lectures on American liberalism and individualism. What a pity...



4. As someone who has, for the last five years, tried to balance my life in the States and my life in Italy, this book has had a lasting impact on the way I view myself as an American, a foreigner, a writer, and an adopted Italian. The book is heavy - it isn't a light travelogue by any means - but anyone with patience and a true desire to dig a little deeper will be rewarded. I carry it with me every time I travel and I re-read passages that seem to speak to me in that moment - the chapter on bread is a favorite.



5. It's difficult to describe this book as simply a memoir when the writing is at times as eloquent as poetry and the themes range from Italian history and politics to individualism and family all the way down to violets outside the window and bread on the table. Above all is the issue of identity- of speaking with an American voice in another landscape- and the struggle that arises when someone gifted, youthful and inquisitive lands in an inward-looking place stiffly rooted in tradition and sameness.
   
   Among the rules and formalities of Italian life, Wilde-Menozzi exhibits a fierce determination to explore and understand both the limits and depths of her new country while trying to maintain the largely American ideals of optimism, free will and self-actualization. What I appreciate about this book is the sincerity and scope of her search for a sense of belonging and connection. With a tone that is rebellious at times, she looks to politics, women in history, Italian behavior, food and culture for answers and comfort and ultimately finds solace in her own powers of observation, analysis and invention. The result is an insightful and daring book rich with beautifully observed elements of modern Italy which also manages to be a deeply moving and personal work.