Book DescriptionIf you could leave behind the life you know to pursue your ultimate dream, would you do it? If you could return to the one place in which you found true inspiration, what do you think you would find there? When Mark G. Smith decided to leave a successful business career to pursue his writing, he did something that many dream of, but few have the courage to try. When he left his life as a corporate businessman to live in Italy for sixteen weeks, he made a reality out of what most would consider pure fantasy. His summer-long sojourn through the most beautiful parts of the Florentine and Venetian countryside gave birth to one of the most unconventional travel memoirs of the season. His account of that magical trip, Tuscan Echoes: A Season in Italy, is part memoir, part philosophical exploration: It is an eclectic series of musings on an ancient country, an earthy tribute to sensual pleasures. In a series of short vignettes the author explores the Italy he knew as a child. Older now, but notnecessarily wiser, the author visits and re-visits some of the country’s most famous attractions, but finds himself continually sidetracked by the odd, the unusual, the quintessentially Italian. This is a memoir of travels down side streets, of visits to small churches tucked away in hidden neighborhoods, of meals taken at family trattorias.
In a time when "extreme" seems to be the watchword for travel literature, when every memoir seems to be an account of a death-defying ascent of a dangerousmountain, or a dangerous voyage across an open sea, there is something quietly beautiful and approachable about Tuscan Echoes. Mark Smith is a traveler not unlike you and me—a man enraptured by the beauty of a lovely country and filled with an innocent wonder for everything he experiences.
Many of us may never have the courage that Mark found to quit the rat race and go in search of a more meaningful life. But in Tuscan Echoes readers can at least find a glimpse of the rewards of taking that leap. They can bask in Italy’s sun-drenched images and at least pretend—in time honored, arm-chair traveler fashion—that they are sitting with him, sipping the local wines and watching the world go by.
Truly a must read for anyone enraptured by Italy, either as an armchair traveler, or as a seasoned traveler. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Tuscan Echoes: A Season in Italy (Mark Gordon Smith)