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Loading... A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller (original 2006; edition 2007)by Frances Mayes
Work InformationA Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller by Frances Mayes (2006)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Not a fan of this one, so it's not becoming a part of my library! While I was a fan of Mayes, I found her 'me, me, me' style in 'A Year in the World' tiresome and leaving a lot to be desired. Yes, she provides a lot of details about her destinations. Yes, her style is still eloquent and readable. But her rather frequent whining about relatively minor or to-be-expected details of their accommodations, surroundings, etc. is tiresome and smacks of entitlement. Which she is free to express but certainly detracts from the book! ( ) This book was a terrible disappointment. I generally love Mayes' writing but found her rather insufferable in this selection. Much duller than her other books, it also shows a fairly nasty side of Mayes that I didn't like. Throughout the book she goes on rants about how things aren't up to her standards, leaving rental homes that had already been paid for because of tacky decor or because it was closer to a busy road than she would like. On top of that, and more grating to me was her constant berating of other people she encountered. She and Ed would giggle over some woman's choice of attire, this one being so out of fashion, that one looking like a sofa. The descriptions of overweight people was particularly galling. Describing one mother as an "albino hippopotamus" and depicting in detail her rolls and bulges because she dared to wear a white bathing suit in public - how dare she! There was one endearing chapter in which they visit Fez (although Ed was sick throughout this visit so perhaps without an audience to share her Mean Girl giggles with, she's less obnoxious). Unfortunately the Fez chapter was a mere 30 pages of 417. Not nearly enough to save the book from itself. I come away from this one really displeased with the author. I won't be reading more of her work. Your enjoyment of this book will largely depend on how much you like the things Frances Mayes likes -- food, flowers and antiquities, to name a few. The locales she and her husband visit are varied, but she spends most of her words for those interests. Very much a diary, including friends in the telling, it's theme is quite loose, finding yourself in other places. Unlike her previous works, she shows a nasty side here, with unkind (and unnecessary) comments about the passengers on a cruise she took. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesGallimard, Folio (4687) Distinctions
The author who captured the experience of starting a new life in Tuscany expands her horizons to immerse herself--and her readers--in the sights, aromas, and treasures of twelve new special places. This book is 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. She rents houses among ordinary residents, shops at neighborhood markets, wanders the back streets, and everywhere contemplates the concept of home. Weaving together personal perceptions and informed commentary on art, architecture, history, landscape, and social and culinary traditions of each area, Mayes brings the immediacy of life in her temporary homes to the reader.--From publisher description. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)914.04561092History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in EuropeLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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