Sunflower Publishing Book Reviews

  Pinch Me  by Barbara Boyle   SUMMARY: A touching memoir filled with food, friendships, and scenes of Italy, Pinch Me is ultimately a celebration of love, of learning to see the world, as well as oneself, through a different window, and of the powerful joy that comes from building a dream. An updated twist on the classic Under the Tuscan Sun, this is the deeply personal story of how fifty-something Barbara Boyle leaves her busy and familiar life behind in San Francisco and begins taking apart a 300-year-old stone barn to build a new home--a new life--in the largely undiscovered region of Piedmont, Italy. Filled with discoveries and pleasures of the stunning places and food she encounters, Pinch Me also details Barbara's frustrations in adjusting to a new culture, as well as the startling heartbreak of being faced with a breast cancer diagnosis. But even in the midst of this crisis, she and her husband create a home out of the stone ruin they had found, form...

When the Mountains Dance  by Christine Toomey   SUMMARY: Love, loss and hope in the heart of Italy ‘In the wake of the strongest earthquake in Italy for nearly forty years and the many aftershocks that followed, Italians began speaking of the earth beneath our feet as la terra ballerina, the dancing earth. The dance they spoke of was unrelenting.’ Foreign correspondent Christine Toomey spent years renovating her glorious, long-abandoned hill-top home in Le Marche, Italy, as a haven of rest from covering crises around the world. But in 2016, the peace and beauty of this beloved landscape were thrown into chaos when a series of powerful earthquakes struck the heart of the Apennines. Wracked with grief for a place still reverberating with seismic aftershocks, Christine decided that one way of preserving the community was to tell its history. Fuelled by the artefacts uncovered in her attic - including oil paintings and lithographs, a map, thick with dust but showing deta...

    My Modena - By Andrea Gelfuso SUMMARY: My Modena , by Andrea Susan Valentine Gelfuso Goetz (aka Andrea Gelfuso), is  a hilarious memoir  of the year she and her family spent in Modena Italy an Italian city that frustrated her every attempt to do the simplest things. Buying a stamp shouldn't be this complicated. Living in an apartment that was like camping, with tile and nowhere to sit. Modena is a town full of ancient churches and beautiful Italians. Here you will meet her friend Melanie, a fashionista who can make ATMs bend to her will from across the country. You will also meet her landlady Giovanna and her husband Raimondo who watched as six firefighters tried to get Andrea and her family back into their 7th-floor apartment, using a ladder truck. You'll also meet Piero the artist, Luca who sold boots, and let us not forget Danilo, Fabio (of the soon-to-be-famous Fabio's balcony), and Marcello, heart-stoppingly gorgeous Italians all.   MY R...