Hilarious send-up of the "my glorious life in Tuscany" memoirs that got to be so popular.

I adore all the characters and their madcap adventures. Samper! Love the double-barreled narration. My boyfriend, who usually has quite different tastes from me, loved this book too. I got him the sequels for his birthday, but this one really takes the cake.

Hilarious, imaginative, quirky and rather heart-warming. Such a funny, well-written and relaxing read, this diverting book is an absolute must for a short trip or holiday break. There are a few unimaginable recipes thrown in for fun, some of which I was actually tempted to make!

this was a most brilliant send-up of the intellectually snobby middle-class elite! completely snarky and bitchy, and wickedly hilarious.

Excellent. After getting readjusted to the loquacious British humor, which I haven’t enjoyed in a while, this was hard to put down. Can’t wait to read the sequels.

To be absolutely honest, I didn't know whether I'd love this book or hate it upon finishing it, while I was reading the first few chapters. There are some chapters I found exhausting, especially the ones related to "cooking". I'm not sure what the hell that's all about except making one of the two main protagonists really weird. Whether that was an attempt at humor, I'll never know.

It contains a fine amount of plot twists and funny moments (those that make you chuckle, not LOL) makes this a really great book. My favorite moments were the ones where you find out how unreliable these characters are as POV characters. Only by experiencing the moments, they share through interchangeable POV chapters do you get the whole picture of what's going on.

I believe this would be something worth a screen adaptation.

Cooking, crime & celebritizing collide - often hilariously -
in this satiric tease on rustic retreats. Hamilton-Paterson
writes with an assured and idiosyncratic comic spirit.
Two crackpot neighbors are thrown together in Tuscany
-- a hotspot of distilled lunacy. Their mischievousness
becomes a perfect uncorked stimulant.

Meet a Brit ghostwriter for celebs who settles in Tusc to write and cook in peace. Then a hearty woman composer fr Eastern Europe plumps down nearby to ponder a score for a fawncy Italian film director. She happens to have a gangster brother. Can they all get along? Is there a screwball life after death...want some eels cooked in chocolate..? Buon divertimento !

Funny and eloquent and completely pointless.

It's been nothing but bad news lately, so it's time for some lightweight comic reading.

I think that I probably bought Cooking with Fernet Branca because it was longlisted for the Booker in 2004.  My visit to Goodreads today reveals that it is Book #1 in the Gerald Samper series which surprises me a little because I thought that the joke had worn a little thin towards the end, but still, it is a funny book.

The narrative is carried by two alternating voices:

Gerald Samper is a truly awful and spectacularly pompous Englishman who is a ghost writer of sporting biographies.  He despises all his subjects, as indeed he despises many things, including his neighbour in Tuscany where he has bought a villa.  Since he considers himself a writer of more importance than his publications suggest, he has had assurances from the house agent Mr Benedetti that this villa is remote and quiet and conducive to creative thought, and that his only neighbour down the hill is very rarely in residence.

His neighbour, Marta, was promised the same solitude.  A refugee from a family of ex-Soviet crime lords in 'Voynovia', she is involved in the creative industries too.  She has come for peace and quiet to complete a film score, on commission from a famous but past his use-by date Italian film-maker called Piero Pacini.  She despises Gerry with equal fervour but she has a good heart and when Gerry knocks himself out demolishing an ancient privy that spoils his view, she brings him breakfast the next day.

'Gerree!' she cries, and certainly her voice has no connection whatever with music.  It goes right through your head like a bullet, leaving a track of gross tissue damage.  'You are not bedding! Is very good.  Look, I bring a break-fast.  Yes.  Is Voynovian food for dying.' She produces what looks like a ball of putty wrapped in a sock.  Is kasha.'

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/08/19/c...

This book is indeed witty. If not for the wonderful writing and use of language, I would have rated it lower, for in fact, I didn't enjoy it very much. I think the problem may have been the humor which perhaps was aimed at a British audience and the recipes, that others may have found hilarious, left me unmoved. In any case, I didn't get much of it and very little made me laugh. Ah, but the writing, the wit, that was worth the read.

Dark, bonkers, great fun.

o amuzanta poveste despre doi vecini, care intamplator, ajung da se imprieteneasca, desi inceputurile relatiei lor de vecinatate nu arata acest lucru pentru ca sunt diferiti.

james paterson-hamilton scrie usor, dar pastrand o nota satirica asupra vremurilor si reusind sa contureze personaje clare, particulare, pe alocuri hilare, dar de care iti este drag si vrei sa petrrci timp cu ele, sa le cunosti.

It's fair to say that if this book hadn't been chosen as a selection over at Cook the Books, I probably would not have read it. I don't read a lot of satireor farce at the best of times and I wasn't familiar with the bitter Italian digestif named in the title. Having read the book I am not sure that I am in a hurry to try the drink when we head to Italy soon. However, there were times when I smiled and even laughed so you have to call that a success for a book that is aiming to be funny.

Professional writer and quintessential Englishman Gerald Samper has moved to the Tuscan countryside in search of one things - solitude. His plan is to be as creative as possible - whether it be experimenting with new recipes, getting ready for his next job, redecorating his house all the while singing with great gusto. Gerald believes he is a great cook, a great writer, and a great singer.

His neighbour Marta has similarly been promised peace and solitude whilst she work on composing a film score for a very famous Italian director who may or may not be making a very raunchy movie. Marta is the daughter of a crime lord from the former Soviet area known as Voynovia, and as the novel progresses her family ties begin to impact her life in Tuscany. Marta does not think Gerry is a good cook or a good singer. I suspect the jury is still out on his writing!


To read more head to http://www.theintrepidreader.com/2022... inlcuding a delicious florentine recipe (it's relevant I promise!)