Foot and Fire

Under the Tuscan Sun is set in Cortona, Italy where the American author Frances Mayes bought a house and narrated her experiences in settling in an Italian Village where Etruscan civilization once flourished. She shuttled back and forth in US and Italy and made homes in two continents. Please see my book review here. It happened in Italy is a storytelling by an Italian-American author Elizabeth Bettina who learned that her grandmother's hometown in Italy called Campagna had been an internment camp of a number of Jews during the holocaust. No one seems to perpetuate stories on Jews in Italy because they have a happy story of survival unlike those that happened in camps where dancing with death were told over and over. Please see my review here. *** I had said my piece for the two books and authors in my respective review of the books but a desire to bring both of them under one review is strong that I have to write it down and blow it away from my consciou...

The Monster of Florence Doug Preston and Mario Spezi Nonfiction, 406 pages I love Florence, I love to experience the Tuscan sun. If I ever have to visit Italy, I want it to be Florence! The painted landscape of Florence in my mind is idyllic, with the sunny hills lined with olive trees, vis-a-vis the proofs of Renaissance from the genius creations of Botticelli, Michaelangelo and Da vinci to Medici's creation of first currency system. As for Italians, I have no painted faces of them yet except that they are Catholics and as they were portrayed in the decade-old film Under the Tuscan Sun (perhaps, this influenced me to love the Tuscan skies!). This want, the book supplanted. And why in the world, I have to pick up The Monster of Florence? Am I ready to discover the monster before I enjoy my longed-for Tuscan vacation someday? I am no fan of thriller novels but I am a fan of nonfiction. I am no fan of crime novels but I am a fan of true crime stories and CSI...