Collaboreads: November

I first learned about #Collaboreads from Kristin's blog and the bookworm in me rejoiced.

Finding new books to read is a never-ending quest for me so this link up is pure gold.  Here is the criteria:

A theme for the month is chosen

Pick your book

Read.  You get a whole month!

Review your book and link up with Amber and Rachel

Non fiction November had me reading Frances Mayes' Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life. 

Goodreads Synopsis:

"In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sunand Bella Tuscany, the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" (New York Times) lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.

 
Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona, how life in the mountains introduced her to a "wilder" side of Tuscany--and with it a lively  engagement with Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention to life in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden.  Moving always toward a deeper engagement, Mayes writes of Tuscan icons that have become for her storehouses of memory, of crucible moments from which bigger ideas emerged, and of the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where Under the Tuscan Sun began.
 
With more on the pleasures of life at Bramasole, the delights and challenges of living in Italy day-to-day and favorite recipes, Every Day in Tuscany is a passionate and inviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian life."

Riveting:

I am a quarter Italian and being so, am enamored by all things Italy; the food, the culture and the countryside. A trip to Italy is on my bucket list. After seeing the movie Under the Tuscan Sun with Diane Lane (whom I adore) years ago (and not realizing it was a book, silly me) I was instantly attracted to this sequel when it turned up in our Little Free Library box. Mayes is living the life and writes about it beautifully.

Elements:

Mayes writes about her days spent living in Italy and visiting the surrounding countryside; I got some serious envy over her beautiful descriptions. And the food! We are given a peek inside her family relationships and friendships and learn more about her beloved home, Bramasole and the vacation mountain house she and her husband renovated.
Mayes loves the Italian culture and really praises it and does some compare/contrast to life in California (which I totally get, since she lived in San Francisco about 2.5 hours North of us.)

Associate:

Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. But maybe it's because that's the only other nonfiction self- discovery novel I've ever read.

Design:

The cover I liked. The chapter captions we're in a font that was kind of hard to read. But I am dying to make the recipes she included at the end of each chapter!

Stars:

3.5 out of 5.

I loved the country life she portrayed in this book but sometimes I couldn't follow what she was "saying" because it was too poetically written and my mind started to wander, but that's more my problem than hers. Which I find a little amusing because she started her career writing poetry!

Linking up with Amber and Rachel.