COUNTRY WALKERS

Italy: The Tuscan Coast & Elba Island

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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Enrich your travels with reading! Here's a hand-picked list prepared for your journey in conjunction with the book experts at Longitude.

Essential Reading

Item EXITL474. Buy these 3 items as a set for $59 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
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Tuscan Country, A Photographer's Journey

by Wes Walker

CULTURAL PORTRAIT
2007
HARD COVER
160 PAGES

Walker captures the allure of the hill towns, including Siena, Lucca, Pisa and smaller cities and villages in 100 luminous color photographs. (ITL848, $29.95)

D.H. Lawrence and Italy

by D.H. Lawrence

TRAVEL NARRATIVE
2008
PAPER
495 PAGES

This omnibus Penguin Classics edition includes Lawrence's three travel tales, each very different in tone and all wonderful: Sea and Sardinia is a nostalgic look at traditional ways of life; Twilight in Italy, an evocation of Lawrence's memorable stay on Lake Garda; and Etruscan Places his musings on ancient sites, including the painted tombs of Tarquinia. (ITL62, $18.00)

Tuscany Map

by Touring Club Italiano

2011
MAP

A detailed map at a scale of 1:200,000. Imported from Italy. (ITL102, $14.95)

Also Recommended

50 Hikes in & Around Tuscany, Hiking the Mountains, Forests, Coast & Historic Sites of Wild Tuscany & Beyond

by Jeff Taylor

GUIDEBOOK
2007
PAPER
288 PAGES

With day and overnight hikes from Liguria to Toscana itself, Umbria, Abruzzo, Le Marche and Emilia-Romagna, with a cluster of suggested mountain hikes in the Apennine's and coastal walks in Maremma. (ITL827, $16.95)

Fodor's Florence's 25 Best

by Fodor's

GUIDEBOOK
2011
PAPER
128 PAGES

This shirt-pocket guide includes an excellent map and essential information on the city's highlights, including sightseeing, restaurants and shopping. (ITL140, $11.99)

Walking

by Henry David Thoreau

REFERENCE
1994
PAPER
92 PAGES

Slip this pocket edition of Thoreau's meditations on the spiritual benefits of this most civilized form of travel in your daypack for inspiration. (WLK04, $9.99)

Walking and Eating in Tuscany and Umbria

by James Ladsun | Pia Davis

GUIDEBOOK
2005
PAPER
394 PAGES

A practical guide to walking and eating your way through the region, this book includes 40 suggested itineraries, mostly day hikes, with maps, details on local attractions, and illustrations. (ITL97, $20.00)

La Bella Figura, A Field Guide to the Italian Mind

by Beppe Severgnini

CULTURAL PORTRAIT
2007
PAPER
288 PAGES

Italians themselves love this guide to the Italian character, which addresses the apparently never-ending passion for beauty, disorder and high emotion. Severgnini opens the book with a snapshot of the hubbub at Malpensa Airport, then moves on to Tuscany, Rome, Naples and Sardinia. (ITL718, $14.00)

The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany

by James Bentley | Hugh Palmer

HISTORY
1997
HARD COVER
224 PAGES

This handsome oversize picture book is a portrait of the Tuscan landscape and people. It contains maps, a travel guide and many color photographs. (ITL261, $40.00)

A Traveller in Italy

by H.V. Morton | Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

TRAVEL NARRATIVE
2002
PAPER
640 PAGES

The much-beloved, enduring account of Morton's ramblings in the temples, tombs and villas of Tuscany, Lombardy, Emilia and the Veneto. (ITL417, $25.00)

In Tuscany

by Bob Krist | Frances Mayes

BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
2000
HARD COVER
269 PAGES

An edition of Maye's warm, anecdotal account of life on her now-restored Tuscan estate, much enhanced by Bob Krist's color photographs. (ITL348, $35.00)

Napoleon

by Paul Johnson

BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
2006
PAPER
208 PAGES

British historian Johnson doesn't hold back in this enlightening, short biography in the inspired Penguin Lives series. In just over 200 pages, he not only traces the major events of the emperor's life, from his birth on Corsica to his death on St. Helena, but also exposes Napoleon's ruthless appetite for power and his naked opportunism. (FRN348, $14.00)

Too Much Tuscan Sun, Confessions of a Chianti Tour Guide

by Roberto Rodi | Dario Castagno

BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
2004
PAPER
224 PAGES

With affection and humor, Castagno recalls his experience as a tour guide in Tuscany, and the remarkable travelers he meets along the way. His ease with and taste for Chianti combine to evoke intoxicating images of the much-loved Tuscan region. (ITL547, $14.95)

Under the Tuscan Sun

by Frances Mayes

TRAVEL NARRATIVE
1997
PAPER
288 PAGES

In this best-selling memoir of buying, renovating and living in an abandoned villa in Tuscany, Mayes reveals the sensual pleasures found in rural Italy. (ITL85, $15.00)

Amazing Disgrace

by James Hamilton-Paterson

LITERATURE
2006
PAPER

Darker than Hamilton-Paterson's previous outing (Cooking With Fernet) starring Gerald Samper, this hilarious sequel skewers British pretension and the glories of expatriate life in Tuscany. (ITL806, $14.95)

Italian Folktales

by Italo Calvino

LITERATURE
1992
PAPER
763 PAGES

A treasured collection of 200 lively folk tales presented by none other than the great Italo Calvino, a modern master with great affection for the folkloric traditions of his childhood. (ITL314, $25.00)

Summer's Lease

by John Mortimer

MYSTERY
1991
PAPER
288 PAGES

A well-paced mystery set in the Tuscan countryside, by Sir John Morimer, author of Rumpole of the Bailey. Poor Molly Pargeter's idyll is upset when the water supply fails and a neighbor dies. John Gielgud starred in the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation as the seriously mischievous Haverford Downs. (ITL580, $18.00)

The Walker's Literary Companion

by Robert Gilbert | Anne Wallace | Jeffrey Robinson

ANTHOLOGY
2000
HARD COVER
352 PAGES

A diverse sampling of literature on the pleasures of walking, representing philosophers, naturalists, outcasts, athletes and intellectuals from Plato to Frank O'Hara. (WLK08, $24.00)

Tourmaline, A Novel

by Joanna Scott

LITERATURE
2003
PAPER
304 PAGES

Convinced that the island's mineral wealth will turn around his own personal misfortune, an eccentric geologist decamps for Elba in 1956 in this absorbing novel of a family in trouble. Scott interweaves the fictitious tale with plenty of detail about Elba and Napoleon's exile. (FRN368, $13.95)

Travelers' Tales Tuscany

by Tara Austen Weaver | James O'Reilly

ANTHOLOGY
2002
PAPER
222 PAGES
OUT OF PRINT

An anthology of great excerpts from travel essays about Tuscany, with pieces from Saul Bellow, Frances Mayes and Ferenc Mate, among others. (ITL315, $16.95)

Tuscany For Beginners

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

LITERATURE
2005
PAPER
323 PAGES

In this deliciously wicked tale, British novelist Edward-Jones skewers the pretensions of the English abroad, taking as her target the sodden proprietress of a mediocre B&B in Tuscany. (ITL609, $13.95)

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