A Year in the World

Journeys of A Passionate Traveller

By: Frances Mayes

Narrated by: Frances Mayes

The author who unforgettably captured the experience of starting a new life in Tuscany in bestselling travel memoirs expands her horizons to immerse herself—and her readers—in the sights, aromas, and treasures of twelve new special places.

A Year in the World is vintage Frances Mayes—a celebration of the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of quest. An ideal travel companion, Frances Mayes brings to the page the curiosity of an intrepid explorer, remarkable insights into the wonder of the everyday, and a compelling narrative style that entertains as it informs.

With her beloved Tuscany as a home base, Mayes travels to Spain, Portugal, France, the British Isles, and to the Mediterranean world of Turkey, Greece, the South of Italy, and North Africa. In Andalucía, she relishes the intersection of cultures. She cooks in Portugal, gathers ideas in the gardens of England and Scotland, takes a literary pilgrimage to Burgundy, discovers an ideal place to live in Mantova, and explores the essential Moroccan city of Fez. She rents houses among ordinary residents, shops at neighborhood markets, wanders the back streets, and everywhere contemplates the concept of home. While in Greece, she follows the classic Homeric voyage across the Aegean, lives in a bougainvillea-draped stone house in Crete, and then drives deep into the Mani. In Turkey with friends, she sails the ancient coast, hiking to archaeological sites and snorkeling over sunken Byzantine towns. Weaving together personal perceptions and informed commentary on art, architecture, history, landscape, and social and culinary traditions of each area, Mayes brings the immediacy of life in her temporary homes to the reader. An illuminating and passionate book that will be savored by all who loved Under the Tuscan Sun, A Year in the World is travel writing at its peak.©2006 Frances Mayes; (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Those who want to find parts of themselves they didn’t know existed, take risks, have an adventure . . . and discover another culture altogether, with its different rhythms, tastes, smells, and ways of being human—those readers will find in Mayes a kindly, eager, tough-spirited guide.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Mayes is a master at capturing a solid sense of place through her lush, poetic narratives.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“It’s easy to understand why Mayes has become a kind of cult figure for seekers of The Good Life. She not only inspires us to seize the moment, sip the wine, and smell the roses, she also makes us feel it is quite possible to transform our lives, just as she did.”

—Lexington Herald-Leader

“Mayes displays a gift for conveying everyday life through her writing . . . and presents a simpler, less frantic version of how to live one’s life.”
—USA Today

“Frances Mayes is, before all else, a wonderful writer.”—Chicago Tribune

eating her way accross europe

...........we all know that authors should not narrate their own work. Listening to this down-home Georgia girl read her own stuff helps remind us why. And, I'd like to make this clear also: this is a book more about eating than traveling.

Someone stop this woman

Please do not let this author narrate a book again. Her southern accent is not a pleasant one and heaped on top of foreign pronunciations, it's deadly. Also the meals consumed by the author and her husband are the primary focus of the writing. This book is a weak effort.