Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes - A Short Summary & Review
Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes - A Short Summary & Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
Food, frescoes, and foundation repairs
A short summary:
Under the Tuscan Sun chronicles Frances Mayes’s impulsive purchase of a dilapidated villa in the Tuscan countryside and the transformative journey that follows. What begins as a leap into renovation quickly becomes a deeply immersive exploration of Italian life, filled with markets overflowing with fresh produce, communal meals that stretch late into the evening, and the painstaking restoration of frescoed walls, creaking beams, and stone foundations. Alongside architectural repairs, Mayes rebuilds a sense of place and belonging, weaving together gardening, cooking, language learning, and rich local friendships. The book unfolds as a series of sensory vignettes that celebrate the rhythms of daily life, the labor of patience, and the slow discovery that home can sometimes be found far from where one began.
My favorite quote from the book:
"Life offers you a thousand chances....all you have to do is take one."
Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun
Questions to ponder while reading:
Could I have made a choice like that?
How much pasta is considered binge eating?
My review:
This book is pure wanderlust fuel. I both admired and envied this life; every page seemed filled with sensory pleasures that left me starving for Italian food and daydreaming about small-town living abroad. Mayes’s lyrical attention to meals, gardens, and renovation details made even foundation repairs feel romantic, and her devotion to cultivating both basil plants and human community was genuinely inspiring. If anything, the story reads less like a traditional memoir and more like a love letter to choosing beauty, savoring slow living, and embracing the imperfect work of restoration, both of houses and of oneself. By the final chapters, I was ready to plant more basil, pour a glass of wine, and start imagining my own version of a Tuscan escape.
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a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller living in Salem, Virginia.
In addition to her travel writings at www.takethebackroads.com, you can also read her book reviews at www.riteoffancy.com and US military biographies at www.everydaypatriot.com
Her online photography gallery can be found at shop.takethebackroads.com
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