Frances Mayes Audiobooks

Under the Tuscan Sun, the memoir that sent a generation house-hunting in Italy

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.3/5 average

2 listener ratings

Who is Frances Mayes?

Frances Mayes, born in 1940, is an American writer whose name is inseparable from a single book: Under the Tuscan Sun, her 1996 memoir, which spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list and became the basis for the film of the same name.

Few writers get to own a moment quite so completely. Two years is a long residency on any bestseller list, and the book’s success made Mayes the emblem of a particular dream of Italy – one that readers, and now listeners, show no sign of tiring of.

Frances Mayes in audiobooks

Under the Tuscan Sun, the Mayes title in our catalogue, is escapist listening in the most honourable sense of the word. Memoir is an intimate form to begin with, and audio doubles the intimacy: Tuscany arrives warm and unhurried in the ear while the British weather carries on regardless outside. It is not difficult to hear why the book held the bestseller lists for over two years, nor why it leapt to the screen.

For UK listeners this is restorative stuff – the audiobook equivalent of a fortnight somewhere golden – and its reputation was earned honestly.