I recently read her Dictionary of Lost Words, and The Bookbinder of Jericho (over the last 12 months), both of which I enjoyed, and was open to more from her voice and cadence. So when a friend found this book, which is a memoir, I was all up for reading it.
It is sunny book, recounting one summer that the author and her family spend in Italy working across farms for lodging and boarding. They travel with their two young sons. They wish to make a life on a farm of their own in Southern Australia, and for work experience, or rather a hands-on experience of managing a farm, they travel and work abroad.
You almost see the future author's glimpse here. Who sees the dreams of the slow life, the good life as she calls it, but is perhaps not really finding it as the perfect outcome in just farming alone. She likes making and baking, and she likes the time that while the dough ferments and the bread bakes, she can quietly spend it with her ideas and notebook.
It is very interesting that so far (midway), apart from her recording the days and then spending time writing her thoughts, there's no reference that she wishes to be a fiction writer. It is interesting to see the cross-section of a life like this, the way it is being lived, the dreams recorded, the notes and their reference point before she became a popular author, and then perhaps a wonder about her life now. It somehow makes things accessible, just another person next door - her memoir is special because it is not about a famous person, but just everyday people trying to find a different life in the modern world.
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