Beautiful Ruins Book Review

I ran across this book at the library.  It was on a special shelf labeled "Bucket List Books."  I was wary.  But the cover was absolutely stunning.  I also pick my wine by the label.  I googled it on Kirkus and it had a starred review.  So I gave it a shot.  

Go ahead and read it.

It is a lush story of old Liguria mixed with vintage and new Hollywood.  You may laugh out loud as I did when you read the Scientology jokes.

It's a great mix of old, new, exotic and, if you live in Southern California, local.  It's sweet and heartbreaking and I bet you can relate to at least one character. 

And if you don't like it, the cover alone -- stunning Manarola in the Cinque Terre -- will be lovely to look at on your night stand.

The most beautiful villages in Italy

You, too, may have stumbled across this article on buzzfeed recommending 15 must-see Italian villages.  It must have been hard to whittle it down to 15.

The Italian government has taken a much more in-depth stab at this list.  The Il Borghi piu d'Italia web site is slow to load (maybe a reminder to slow down?) but it's worth the wait.

The recommended villages are broken out into an interactive map - the north, centre and south, including Sicily.

There's also a hard copy book but it's in Italian. Even more reason to slow down and brush up on your language skills. At the bottom of the web site you can sign up for the newsletter, too. 

Even for devout Italophiles, there's bound to be some new towns for you to visit.

Vernazza, rebuilt after the 2011 mudslide, made the cut on both lists

Looks Like Liguria in Here!

Today the kids and I harvested the basil and made pesto in the blender using the simple recipe from Twelve.  Although it reduced quite a bit in the blender, there was still a ton of it.  We decided to try freezing it in ice trays to save for future meals.  Here is a pic of the gloppy goop. 

Do you know Filippo Brunelleschi?

Da Vinci and Columbus get a lot of respect. But, both drew inspiration from Brunelleschi’s designs.   

One of history’s greatest architects and inventors, Brunelleschi is best known for Santa Maria del Fiore’s soaring dome in Florence, better known as “the duomo.”  Finished in 1436, it took 16 years to build and still holds the title of the largest brick and mortar dome in the world.   

Da Vinci sketched hoists and cranes that Brunelleschi designed to build the duomo, while Columbus used navigation technology gleaned from sun experiments atop the duomo.  Filippo is also credited with the first patent and the invention of one-point linear perspective. He is fittingly laid to rest in Santa Maria del Fiore.  This short, homely, unmarried, paranoid man is well described in Ross King’s Brunelleschi’s Dome.  A quick and entertaining read for anyone that has climbed between the dome’s shells and emerged atop the cupola with all of Florence spread out below them.  King does a bang up job describing the intricacies of his inventions without causing your eyes to glaze over.  

Other significant Brunelleschi designs:

Oespedale degli Innocenti

Pazzi Chapel, Santa Croce

Basilicas of Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo

Living La Dolce Vita? A Book Review

Just finished Raeleen d'Agostino Mautner's book.  She is something of a cultural psychologist.  This is more of a self-help style book than a manual on how to live superficially like Italians (throw on a scarf and heels and sip a glass of wine on your balcony, etc.).   

Much of it is common sense, but it is a good reminder of why the Italians seem to be living simpler, more relaxed lives.   If your life is totally out of whack, this is a great book.  If you already lead a balanced life and have your priorities in order, you may not need this book. 

She definitely makes a lot of generalizations, but you'd have to in order to summarize the lifestyle of an entire country.  Worth a read when you feel like you are on the hamster wheel, buy it used.