The reluctant Tuscan, Dallas to London

The cover image of the Reluctant Tuscan On the flight home to Bangalore from Dallas to London, I made a friend over a book. An American girl next to me was reading ‘The Reluctant Tuscan’. The book made me strike up a conversation and she said she was reading it because her boyfriend was Italian and she was wondering how she would fit into his culture and family back in Tuscany! She was from California and her drop dead handsome Italian boyfriend had asked her to marry him. She had been to Tuscany twice and found it hard in a small village. But was concerned about her parents who were Caholic but not religious and never went to church. How would they blend with this rigid Catholic family and extended Italian family!

Phil Doran and his wife who bought the house Her copy of the book was amazingly a first edition, signed by the author Phil Doran himself! Apparently after years of working on a string of sitcoms, Phil Doran found himself on the outside looking in. Just as he and his peers had replaced the older guys when he was coming up the ranks, it was now happening to him. And it was freaking him out. He came home every night angry, burned- out, and exhausted. After twenty-five years of losing her husband to Hollywood, Doran’s wife decided it was finally time for a change—so on one of her many solo trips to Italy she surprised her husband by purchasing a broken-down 300-year-old farmhouse for them to restore. The Reluctant Tuscan is about the author’s transition from being a successful but overworked writer-producer in Hollywood to rediscovering himself and his wife while in Italy, and finding happiness in the last place he expected.

A meal in Tuscany which is hearty and fun In the witty tone that made him a success as a writer in Hollywood, The Reluctant Tuscan captivates those who simply love a good travel narrative as well as anyone who loves the quirky humor of stars -- Bill Bryson, Dave Barry and Jerry Seinfeld.

The beautiful cover of Under the Tuscan Sun with the actress in the movie adaptation. I had read “ Under the Tuscan Sun” years ago with my book club which I began in the Catholic Club named iBrowse, and so was curious. Another book lover Sheila Kumar and a member of my old book club had suggested it. Boy was I glad she did, because we all read the book sharing the five copies which were bought by the club and I finally took my copy for my DIL who is an avid book reader too in the US. “Under the Tuscan Sun” is a 1996 memoir by American author Frances Mayes. It was adapted by director Audrey Wells for the 2003 film Under the Tuscan Sun. The New York Times elevated the novel to the title of Notable Book of 1997. The book, published by Random House, was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 1997. It includes several chapters of recipes, and describes how she bought and restored an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside.

The beautiful house which was slowly restored. The story details the trials that Frances and her husband Ed had to go through to renovate their Tuscan villa. As university professors, they did not have to work during the summer; instead of teaching, they spent their summers renovating. While going through an extensive amount of paperwork to begin construction, they meet and befriend many people, including a group of Polish men and a local man who fixes their stone wall. They encounter many problems along the way; their Italian is poor and their contractors are lazy. Throughout the story, Frances imagines the villa's previous owner, possibly a kind old nonna ( grandmother). She pictures how the nonna would react to the renovations that Frances was doing to her home. The couple's main interest is to be able to return to their villa during Christmas break to celebrate the holidays. This is denied to them at first; the first Christmas that they return to Tuscany, they find their villa in shambles. This is resolved later in the book, when Frances and Ed get to spend their winter in their villa. Amazing how friendships happen over books! And we chatted for a while from Dallas to London about her plans and how it would work. Half way through I exchanged seats with her boyfriend so they could sit together!