Elizabeth Buchan is the author of several highly acclaimed and bestselling books of fiction, including the bestselling Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The Good Wife Strikes Back, Everything She Thought She Wanted, Consider the Lily, and Separate Beds.In 2006 at the Guardian, she named a top ten list of books to comfort and console during a divorce. One title on the list:
Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances MayesRead about the other books on the list.
Mayes struck gold with her account of buying and restoring a Tuscan villa when it was first published. It is a book that plugs into the contemporary fantasy of giving it all up to live out an idyll in asun-kissed foreign spot. I confess I'm a sucker for it, and to read of her patient and loving restoration of Bramsole, the house she bought near Cortona, is to indulge in a ridiculous, but highly potent, daydream. She neglects nothing in the confection of the fairy tale that hangs around the beautiful, neglected house longing for the restorative touch. There are funny, and occasionally almost disastrous, battles to make the house habitable again, luscious descriptions of meals, a fascination with the local topography, history and landscape, and a selection of authentic recipes. All in all, it offers irresistible escapism - a necessary pleasure at a difficult time.
Visit Elizabeth Buchan's website.
The Page 69 Test: Separate Beds.
Writers Read: Elizabeth Buchan (March 2011).
My Book, The Movie: Separate Beds.
--Marshal Zeringue
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