Have you heard about the new biography of Father Guido Sarducci

March 19, 2008 6:07 PM

I am looking for some books to read before my trip to Tuscany.

With some help from a previous AskMe I am getting ready for a trip to Tuscany and would like some reading to put me in the mood. History, novels, guide books - I am open to anything.

posted by shothotbot to Travel & Transportation around Italy (8 answers total)

My favorite guidebook to anywhere in the world is Authentic Tuscany. You must get this book! I also liked "Italy in Mind" - an anthology which can give you all sorts of ideas. There is now a Tuscan-specific version which sounds really good called Tuscan in Mind.
posted by thomas144 at 7:16 PM on March 19, 2008

"Under the Tuscan Sun" & "Bella Tuscany" by Frances Mayes
posted by belladonna at 7:17 PM on March 19, 2008

Another book I really liked is Too Much Tuscan Sun - a book written by a Sienese about his experiences giving tours to (mostly) American tourists.

Another somewhat off-the-wall parody of its genre that I can recommend (if you happen to want to read a parody of Tuscan memoires) is Cooking with Fernet Branca.
posted by thomas144 at 7:21 PM on March 19, 2008

Certainly Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy.

People love The New Italians, but I lived there for 2 years and thought that book sucked.

I always read the Xenophobe Guides when going to a new country. They have one for Italy.

And it's not a book recommendation, but check out Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco while you're in Florence.
posted by charlesv at 7:38 PM on March 19, 2008

Anything by the great Tim Parks, but especially his memoirs about life in Italy (Italian Neighbors and An Italian Education), which will give you a keen, nuanced, entertaining sense of what it's like to be an English-speaking expatriate adjusting to the country and its culture. He's mostly lived in Verona, but that's close enough that I doubt the distinctions from Tuscany much matter for your purposes.
posted by dyoneo at 7:41 PM on March 19, 2008

I've read 3 books set in Italy and thought they were good.
Under the Tuscan Sun
(The book is different from the movie enough to warrant reading even if you've seen the movie)

Bella Tuscany

The Miracles of Santo Fico

I hope you have a wonderful trip.
posted by GlowWyrm at 7:55 PM on March 19, 2008

Seconding Tim Parks.
posted by charlesv at 8:27 PM on March 19, 2008

I picked up Tim Parks' book about the Verona soccer team in Heathrow on the way to Italy one year and enjoyed it immensely. It is "A Season with Verona..."

The suggestion to read "The Agony and the Ecstasy" reminds me that on my first trip to Italy, in Florence, I found an English language bookstore and bought both volumes of Bernard Berenson's "Italian Painters of the Renaissance", which, incredibly, is out of print. Another fun thing to read in Tuscany if you are interested in art history is Vasari's "Lives of the Artists".
posted by thomas144 at 8:32 AM on March 20, 2008