Reviews of my favorite books written by expatriates, journalists, and diplomats on what it's really like to live abroad

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Book Review: Notes From an Italian Garden by Joan Marble

I love the story of how Boston-born journalist Joan Marble first became obsessed with gardening ... adding one little potted plant after another to her small Roman balcony. Finally, she and her husband bought a piece of land north of Rome and built a summer home there, so she could expand her plant collection.

The land was dense, red clay -- terrible for gardening. We're talking pick-axes. In fact, they had to dynamite holes to plant the long rows of cypress trees lining the driveway. But Joan and an assortment of helpers persisted. This memoir, written 30 years after the founding of the garden, gives a behind-the-scenes look at how it evolved, and the lessons learned and friends made along the way.

My favorite part describes her research into green houses for warmer climates. You can't use a traditional glass greenhouse in the Mediterranean because your plants will fry. Instead, you have to create a shady-greenhouse. Joan's sounds delicious, but I do wish she'd included some actual blueprints or photographs to illustrate. The book is packed with artistic line drawings which are pretty, but not much help for me at least.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Book Review: O Come Ye Back to Ireland by Niall Williams and Christine Breen

I can't imagine how they stayed. No, really. When the Niall and Christine abandoned their just-taking-off publishing careers in New York City to move to a small family farm in County Clare, they were as hard-working and positive thinking as you can possibly be. There they were, living their dream, and it mainly turned out to be as dreary and dreadful as life could be.

The darling old cottage was dirt-floored and drafty, and they didn't have enough stored turf to burn to keep it warm. Their crop was threatened by blight. The potential pool of local friends were nearly all senior citizens or close to it. They learned they could not have children naturally. They desperately missed basics such as orange juice, doughnuts and a fat Sunday paper. It rained and rained and rained and rained and rained. Then it rained some more.

But, despite everything, they stuck it out. They learned to cut turf, plant a garden, own chickens and cows. They started a local exercise class, put on a play, learned to paint, finished novels... Life, despite everything, got better.

Book Review: A Pig in Provence by Georgeanne Brennan

When I'd heard famous, California-born, cookbook author Georgeanne Brennan had written an autobiography of her life in Provence, I was expecting, well, an autobiography; but, that's not what this is. Instead, it's a collection of eight autobiographical essays, each centered around a particular Provencal food item. For example, one is about aoli, another on wild mushrooms, and a third about freshly butchered pork.

I'm not a true foodie, but most of the details she mentioned were things I already knew about from other books or personal experience. So, there's nothing unique in here, although the eight featured recipes look fairly useful. Frustratingly, Georgeanne includes just enough biographical details to get your taste whetted... and then goes back to food again. You can tell she's got a great memoir inside of her, but it's not this book.

Perhaps the most illuminating information in the book are little side comments strewn throughout about how much Provence has changed since Georgeanne first moved there in 1970, and indeed how lucky she was in 1970 to witness the very last of the oldtime customs. Tellingly, her son was the first child born in the village after an entire decade. Her local friends, at that time, were nearly all old age pensioners. Today the people inhabiting those same homes are mostly well-off vacationers from places like Germany, the UK and Paris.

Georgeanne has asked many of her oldest French friends if they miss the old days. No, they all say. It was too much hard work and isolation. But I can tell she's nostalgic for those times, if only because the food, then all homegrown and homemade, was slightly better.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Book Review: Ninety Dozen Glasses by Marguerite Cullman

Back in 1958, near the peak of America's golden years, President Eisenhower appointed Marguerite Cullman's husband to be the US Commissioner General to the Brussels World Exhibition. Her charming memoir, published January 1960, has long been one of my favorites -- the sort of old, beloved book you dig out to read on a rainy day every few years.

I suppose it's partly because this is the sort of book you expect when you imagine diplomatic wife memoirs. Lots and lots of cocktail parties, much being made over who sits precisely where at all official functions, dealing with the servants (should one find a drunken butler amusing, or fire him?), house hunting with a fat budget and perfect taste in a European capital city, and unexpected friendships with one's diplomatic peers from all sorts of exotic countries.

One of the most memorable parts of the book is Cullman's description of what each nation chose to display to symbolize the power and might of their culture. The Russians put a giant piece of agricultural equipment on display. The US put a big fat copy of that week's Sunday New York Times.

BTW: The ninety dozen glasses of the title refer to the massive cabinet of cocktail glasses of every size and description that were a requirement for the job. Too bad I never had a job like that!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Book Review: North of Ithaka by Eleni N. Gage

Daughter of Nicholas Gage, in her late 20s, New York journalist Eleni Gage gave up her job and spent a year in the small village of Lia in northern Greece in order to rebuild the family home which had been abandoned 50 years before when her grandmother Eleni was infamously murdered.

What's wonderful for me about this book is that the author not only shows the every day life of the village as it is today but also reveals what it's like being the first generation born in the USA, complete with tons of aunties full of life advice from the old country.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to move to a small Greek town in the mountains, this is the book for you. Rather unromantically, every single inhabitant is at or over retirement age. But, Eleni makes friends with most, creating a community and support network of grey haired friends. You get the feeling that if younger Greeks stuck around in the old towns, she'd be there still.

Includes eight pages of photos of the people and places described in the book (very welcome, especially because so few memoirs include photos) and details about Eleni's home renovation (nearly a complete rebuild) of her grandmother's traditional stone home.