Status
Available
Collection
Series
Publication
Algonquin Books (2002), Edition: 1, 272 pages
Description
Fernando first sees Marlena across the Piazza San Marco and falls in love from afar. When he sees her again in a Venice caf#65533; a year later, he knows it is fate. He knows little English; she, a divorced American chef traveling through Italy, speaks only food-based Italian. Marlena thought she was done with romantic love, incapable of intimacy. Yet within months of their first meeting, she has quit her job, sold her house in St. Louis, kissed her two grown sons good-bye, and moved to Venice to marry "the stranger," as she calls Fernando. This deliciously satisfying memoir is filled with the foods and flavors of Italy and peppered with culinary observations and recipes. But the main course here is an enchanting true story about a woman who falls in love with both a man and a city, and finally finds the home she didn't even know she was missing.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member dianaleez
I love Venice [so, who doesn't?] and enjoyed reading this, but her ego certainly isn't small. It was interesting to see how the 'real' people live.
LibraryThing member sfeggers
Nice read but perhaps could have used a bit more editing. Liked the recipes at the end, but it isn't A Year in Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun.
LibraryThing member skyeval
I really enjoyed this travel/love memoir. A reviewer comapred it to Eat Pray Love, but I do not think it was as memorable.
LibraryThing member karenpossingham
This is the first in a series of books about Italy, by food writer Marlena De Blasi and describes how the American divorcee arrives in Venice and has romance and lots of delicous food. It is a beautifully written and a very sensual book. You end up having to read it slowly as it feels like a rich
Show More
dessert that you need to savour. If you have an Italian obsession (and what middle-aged woman doesn't?) this is for you. Show Less
LibraryThing member yvonnebarlow
I loved this - a mature romance that showed bravery to give up your life and start anew in another country. Her insight on Italian ways of bureaucracy should be read by all considering a move to Italy.
LibraryThing member cameling
Move aside Eat,Pray,Love ... Marlena de Blassi has given us a truly reflective look at a woman who is unafraid to trust her soul to whatever the Fates may bring. Be it love in the form of a skinny Venetian banker who fell in love with her profile when she first came to Venice, or be it leaving her
On the surface, the story is a about a woman who falls in love and moves to Venice to get married. And if you were to skim quickly through this book, you would lose the chance to learn. For yes, there are lessons to learn through our heroine, Marlena's journey to love. She loves the man and in that love, she also trusts her heart, and she opens herself without reserve to experiences that present themselves to her, and truly adapting to the Venetian culture. Where her fiance retreats into his mental man-cave and looks around with "dead-bird eyes", she has the patience and self-confidence to let him weed out his angst on his own, trusting that he will open up to her when he is ready.
Her journey is lovely as it is inspirational as it is sometimes humorous. What it is, most of all, though, is hopeful.
Show More
St Louise home and moving to Venice to be with this stranger, or be it embracing her new home and having that gently elegant lady embrace her.On the surface, the story is a about a woman who falls in love and moves to Venice to get married. And if you were to skim quickly through this book, you would lose the chance to learn. For yes, there are lessons to learn through our heroine, Marlena's journey to love. She loves the man and in that love, she also trusts her heart, and she opens herself without reserve to experiences that present themselves to her, and truly adapting to the Venetian culture. Where her fiance retreats into his mental man-cave and looks around with "dead-bird eyes", she has the patience and self-confidence to let him weed out his angst on his own, trusting that he will open up to her when he is ready.
Her journey is lovely as it is inspirational as it is sometimes humorous. What it is, most of all, though, is hopeful.
Show Less
LibraryThing member baswood
A well told story of a love affair in Venice. It is the feel for the city and the people that raises this book above the ordinary
LibraryThing member amanderson
To continue my travel memoir kick. . . this was a pleasing memoir with a lovely literary style of writing and wonderful descriptions of food and cooking. Good for foodies. The author is an American chef and writer who while staying in Venice meets a "blueberry eyed" Venetian man who looks like
Show More
Peter Sellers and who falls in love with her at first sight. She falls in love with him too, and moves to live in Venice with him, in a decidedly unromantic apartment that she redecorates & then they remodel together. This book hit most of my happy notes: lush Italian cooking & drink descriptions (and American actually), beautiful descriptions of foreign places and people, with some history thrown in (but not a huge amount), a romantic story but also realistic one about adjusting to married life with a near stranger, and descriptions of house and apartment remodeling done by a woman with style and a real sense of what the Germans call "gemütlich" (comfortable, cozy, homy).I have her next book, "A Thousand Days in Tuscany", on hold now at the library. Yay. Show Less
LibraryThing member tvordj
A recently divorced woman who is a chef and writer and travels to Italy regularly finds herself in Venice in a little cafe. An Italian man saw her in the city the year before and it was love at first sight for him. When he sees her in the cafe, he knows it's fate and contacts her. He speaks little
It doesn't always go smoothly as they get to know one another and she gets to grips with the Italian culture which is very different from the American. The book tells the story of her bumpy introduction to living in Venice, how she makes a life for herself with this man who she calls the Stranger for most of the book while they learn about each other. It's romantic but not overly sentimental and you really get a feel for what Venice is like, beneath the tourist trappings.
Show More
English and she speaks very little Italian but somehow he manages to sweep her off her feet and she ends up selling her house and moving to Venice with him. It doesn't always go smoothly as they get to know one another and she gets to grips with the Italian culture which is very different from the American. The book tells the story of her bumpy introduction to living in Venice, how she makes a life for herself with this man who she calls the Stranger for most of the book while they learn about each other. It's romantic but not overly sentimental and you really get a feel for what Venice is like, beneath the tourist trappings.
Show Less
LibraryThing member pussreboots
Good book. Thank you for letting me borrow the book! I have wanted to read it since I heard a Radio 4 radio play based on the book. If I didn't know a couple who had a similar experience (except that the locations involved were France and California) I would probably be more dismissive of her
Show More
whirlwind relationship with "Peter Sellers." But instead I found myself comparing the ins and outs of their relationship to those details of my parents' friends and nodding knowingly when things matched up. Show Less
LibraryThing member mlake
A Thousand Days in Venice was not at all the book I was expecting. I love the idea of meeting a stranger in a foreign country and falling in love. I had a harder time imagining myself leaving everything to be with him; allowing him to be in charge because I knew he needed to be (as Marlena does). I
July 2013
Show More
loved the description of Venice and the home Marlena created for herself and her new husband. I even copied some of the recipes.July 2013
Show Less
LibraryThing member BookConcierge
In November 1993 the author arrived in Venice with two friends in tow. As they lunched at a small local place, she noticed a table of four men seated nearby. After all the other patrons had left and she and her friends were alone in the restaurant, the waiter approached and said there was a
She resisted for several days, but he kept finding her. And when she returned to St Louis, there he was two days later - come across the ocean to insist she return with him to Venice. He was “tired of waiting” for his life to begin, for joy and love to come to him.
This is a delicious memoir of a love that surprised these two middle-aged people – a Venetian banker and an American journalist (and chef). I am smiling thinking about it. I kept reading passages aloud to anyone who would listen (and even a few who didn’t want to listen). De Blasi is not only in love with Fernando (“the stranger”), she is in love with Venice. No, she is in love with life, and she imbues her writing with that love. Is it all smooth sailing? Of course not. He lives, and prefers, a Spartan life – simple, small meals, a functional but uninspired and colorless apartment. She is vibrant, wearing “too-red” lipstick, and wanting to surround herself in rich fabrics and deep colors. And, she is a chef – she loves to cook large elaborate meals, to nurture people. Oh, and she isn’t fluent in Italian, much less the Venetian dialect, and he doesn’t speak English. And yet … She held tight to her friend’s advice: “Take it in your hands and hold tight to this love. If it comes, it comes only once.”
Read this. And enjoy life!
Show More
telephone call for her. “Not possible,” she answered. They had only just arrived that morning and had not yet notified their friends where they were, surely they hadn’t told anyone where they were going for lunch! But the waiter insisted and she went to the phone, to hear a “deep, deliberate, Italian voice I’d never heard before” ask – Is it possible for you to meet me tomorrow at the same time? It’s very important for me.She resisted for several days, but he kept finding her. And when she returned to St Louis, there he was two days later - come across the ocean to insist she return with him to Venice. He was “tired of waiting” for his life to begin, for joy and love to come to him.
This is a delicious memoir of a love that surprised these two middle-aged people – a Venetian banker and an American journalist (and chef). I am smiling thinking about it. I kept reading passages aloud to anyone who would listen (and even a few who didn’t want to listen). De Blasi is not only in love with Fernando (“the stranger”), she is in love with Venice. No, she is in love with life, and she imbues her writing with that love. Is it all smooth sailing? Of course not. He lives, and prefers, a Spartan life – simple, small meals, a functional but uninspired and colorless apartment. She is vibrant, wearing “too-red” lipstick, and wanting to surround herself in rich fabrics and deep colors. And, she is a chef – she loves to cook large elaborate meals, to nurture people. Oh, and she isn’t fluent in Italian, much less the Venetian dialect, and he doesn’t speak English. And yet … She held tight to her friend’s advice: “Take it in your hands and hold tight to this love. If it comes, it comes only once.”
Read this. And enjoy life!
Show Less
LibraryThing member kakadoo202
Glad it worked out for her but the story was just too Hollywood for me
LibraryThing member murderbydeath
This was part of a box of books I was given by my neighbour, and as I'd previously read A Thousand Days in Tuscany, I was interested to read how de Blasi's story began. When I first picked up A Thousand Days in Tuscany it was billed as 'romantic' but was not at all romantic (beyond the romance of
Turns out this one is all about the romance. How she met her husband on a trip to Venice and had sold everything back home and married him within the year. This might seem implausible to a lot of readers, but as I met MT, sold everything and moved to AU within 10 months, I'm not one of those people. Our beginnings, however, weren't nearly as romantic; I suspect the setting had a lot to do with that. Exotic (for me, anyway), but definitely not Venice-Italy-romantic. (This might sound like a wistful complaint; it's not - I do not have a romantic bone in my body.)
So, generally, I did not enjoy this one as much. I mean, I enjoyed the Venice bits, of course, but reading about her romance and her struggles to fit in to an entirely new culture, while getting to know her new husband were, even though they felt very realistic, not really my cuppa.
Reading this did leave me with a very strong hankering for pasta though. Three guesses what we had for dinner. ;)
Show More
living in Tuscany); it was far more about her and her husband's work on their land and home and I found it more interesting than I expected. So when I saw this one touted as romantic as well, I took it with a grain of salt.Turns out this one is all about the romance. How she met her husband on a trip to Venice and had sold everything back home and married him within the year. This might seem implausible to a lot of readers, but as I met MT, sold everything and moved to AU within 10 months, I'm not one of those people. Our beginnings, however, weren't nearly as romantic; I suspect the setting had a lot to do with that. Exotic (for me, anyway), but definitely not Venice-Italy-romantic. (This might sound like a wistful complaint; it's not - I do not have a romantic bone in my body.)
So, generally, I did not enjoy this one as much. I mean, I enjoyed the Venice bits, of course, but reading about her romance and her struggles to fit in to an entirely new culture, while getting to know her new husband were, even though they felt very realistic, not really my cuppa.
Reading this did leave me with a very strong hankering for pasta though. Three guesses what we had for dinner. ;)
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2002-06-01
ISBN
1565123212 / 9781565123212
UPC
019628723215