Audiobooks by Edward Mayes

Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy

I always imagine each of the signoras who lived in this house—where she shelled peas, rocked the grandchild, placed a vase of the pink roses. Now I would like to take one of these women back to my house in California to show her how Bramasole traveled to America and took root, how the doors there are open to the breeze from San Pablo bay and to the distant view of Mount Tamalpais, how the table has expanded and the garden has burgeoned… The “bard of Tuscany” (New York Times) now offers a lavishly illustrated book for everyone who dreams of integrating the Tuscan lifestyle—from home decoration and cooking, to eating and drinking, to gardening, socializing, and celebrating—into their own lives. When Frances Mayes fell in love with Tuscany and Bramasole, millions of readers basked in the experience through her three bestselling 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 readers stateside to bring the beauty and spirit of Tuscany into their own home decor, meals, gardens, entertaining and, most important, outlook on life. In her inimitable warm and evocative tone, Frances helps readers develop an eye for authentic Tuscan style, with advice on how to: • Choose a Tuscan color palette for the home, from earthy apricot tones to invigorating shades of antique blue. • Personalize a room with fanciful door frames, unique painted furniture, and fresco murals. • Cultivate a Tuscan garden, adding fountains, vine-covered pergolas, and terra-cotta urns among the herbs and flowers • Select the best Italian vino. (Frances describes lunches at regional vineyards and imparts tips for pairing food and wine.) • Create an atmosphere of irresistible, anytime hospitality—a casa aperta (open home). • Make primo finds at local antiques markets. (And to help truly bring Tuscany home, shipping advice and market days for several Tuscan towns are included.) • Set an imaginative Tuscan table using majolica and vintage linens. • Enjoy the abundant flavors and easy simplicity of the Tuscan kitchen, with details on everything from olive oil and vino santo to pici and gnocchi, plus special homegrown menus and recipes. • Make the most of a trip to Tuscany, visiting Frances’s favorite hill towns, restaurants, small museums, and other soothing places. With more than 100 photos by acclaimed photographer Steven Rothfeld (including several of the Mayes’s California home and its Tuscan accents), twenty-five all-new recipes, and lists of resources for travelers and shoppers, Bringing Tuscany Home is a treasure trove of practical advice and memorable images.

Edward Mayes, Frances Mayes (Author), Frances Mayes (Narrator)

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In Tuscany

From the bestselling author whose memoirs Under the Sun and Bella Tuscany have captured the voluptuousness of Italian life comes a lavishly illustrated ode to the joys of Tuscany’s people, food, landscapes, and art. 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 all-new essays by Frances Mayes and a chapter by her husband, poet Edward Mayes, with more than 200 full-color photos by photographer Bob Krist, each of this book’s five sections highlights a signature aspect of Tuscan life: La Piazza–the locus of Italian village life. With photgraphs of the shop signs, the outdoor markets, medieval streets, people, their pets and their cars, and snippets of conversations overheard, Mayes reveals the life of the Piazza in her town of Cortona as well as out-of-the-way places such as Volterra, Asciano, Monte San Savino, and Castelmuzio. La Festa–the celebration. Essays and photos of feasts and celebrations, such as the Christmas dinner for twenty-seven at a neighbor’s house and a donkey race around the church at Montepulciano Stazione, illustrate how the Tuscans celebrate the seasons–their open ways of friendship, their connection to nature, and most of all, their sense of abundance. Il Campo–the field. Here Edward Mayes evokes the deep sense of the shift of seasons as he picks olives before he and Frances head off to the olive oil mill and enjoy the first bruscette with new oil. La Cucina–the kitchen. An intimate view of the all-important role of the kitchen in Tuscan culture, including photographs of her own kitchen and gardens, menus from great local cooks, the elements of the Tuscan table, dishes with cultural and culinary notes on each, and, of course, delectable recipes. La Bellezza–the beauty. From the quality of the light falling on sublime landscapes in different seasons and Tuscan faces in moments of laughter to a silhouette of cypress trees in the early evening and a wild bird perched on a neigbor’s head, In Tuscany features views of beauty that reveal the singular splendor of one of the world’s best-loved and most artistic regions.

Edward Mayes, Frances Mayes (Author), Edward Mayes, Frances Mayes (Narrator)

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