Moving to Liguria in 1999 Julia and her husband got to know the stories of the people with whom they became friendly and the landscape. This is the poetically written result.. A nice read - and having been to Liguria makes it all the more visual! ( )

If Julia Blackburn has committed a bad word to print then I haven't read it. This is a beautiful memoir of ordinary lives in a series of mountain villages in northern Italy - that really could be a microcosm of village life anywhere. This has a lot in common with the work of John Berger, and his "Into Their Labours" series. You are struck by how little has actually happened - each life defined by one or two key events, rather than a modern swirl of activity. But these are long, happy and fulfilled lives and Blackburn's writing is wonderfully evocative of a much slower tempo of life.

So why only 4 stars? Its the photos. Black and white doesn't do them justice. It makes everything seem gray, monotone and depressing - which is not I think what the author intended. But otherwise wonderful ( )

Beautifully writtenbut melancholy memoirs of life in a Italian village ( )