If you could leave behind the life you know to pursue your ultimate dream, would you do it? If you could return to the one place in which you found true inspiration, what do you think you would find there? When Mark G. Smith decided to leave a successful business career to pursue his writing, he did something that many dream of, but few have the courage to try. When he left his life as a corporate businessman to live in Italy for sixteen weeks, he made a reality out of what most would consider pure fantasy. His summer-long sojourn through the most beautiful parts of the Florentine and Venetian countryside gave birth to one of the most unconventional travel memoirs of the season.

His account of that magical trip, Tuscan Echoes: A Season in Italy, is part memoir, part philosophical exploration: It is an eclectic series of musings on an ancient country, an earthy tribute to sensual pleasures. In a series of short vignettes the author explores the Italy he knew as a child. Older now, but not necessarily wiser, the author visits and re-visits some of the country’s most famous attractions, but finds himself continually sidetracked by the odd, the unusual, the quintessentially Italian. This is a memoir of travels down side streets, of visits to small churches tucked away in hidden neighborhoods, of meals taken at family trattorias.

In a time when "extreme" seems to be the watchword for travel literature, when every memoir seems to be an account of a death-defying ascent of a dangerous mountain, or a dangerous voyage across an open sea, there is something quietly beautiful and approachable about Tuscan Echoes. Mark Smith is a traveler not unlike you and me—a man enraptured by the beauty of a lovely country and filled with an innocent wonder for everything he experiences.

Many of us may never have the courage that Mark found to quit the rat race and go in search of a more meaningful life. But in Tuscan Echoes readers can at least find a glimpse of the rewards of taking that leap. They can bask in Italy’s sun-drenched images and at least pretend—in time honored, arm-chair traveler fashion—that they are sitting with him, sipping the local wines and watching the world go by.

Truly a must read for anyone enraptured by Italy, either as an armchair traveler, or as a seasoned traveler.

Average Customer Review: ( 4 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

In Tuscan Echoes, A Season in Italy, Mark G. Smith has managed an amazing feat. He has written an exceptional travel book without any pictures.

Author Mark G. Smith writes with such intimacy and intensely personal imagery that the reader can only imagine he/she is traveling side by side with the author. This comprehensive, dramatic and spiritual journey through some of Italy's most spectacular landscapes and historical landmarks is presented in masterful literary style.

Tuscan Echoes, A Season in Italy is the perfect length at 170 pages, for a quick intellectual get away. As the pages turn, you as the reader will be transported to Florence, Venice, Assisi, Umbria and Tuscany. Images of the landscape so vivid you will imagine you can smell the dark richness of the espresso and feel the heartbeat of the cobblestones in the piazza through the soles of your feet. You will be immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of the Italian culture. Quaint cafes will tantalize your senses. Friendly, out going people will welcome you and majestic churches will provide soulful inspiration. By the last page you will feel as if you truly hear the Tuscan Echoes.

Author Mark G. Smith's personal experience with Italy has been life long. He lived near Florence as a child and as an adult, spent more than thirty years traveling this fascinating country .His passion for the Tuscan region is evident in his intimate descriptions, which evoke a deep longing in the readers to experience Italy for themselves. This memoir represents one season. If your average day is just plain hectic, then this book will allow you to escape for a few hours to the land of serenity, beauty and passion. Give yourself a truly enjoyable journey of discovery. This book would also make an excellent gift for your favorite armchair traveler or as a take along guide for the serious traveler.

Reviewer: Shirley Roe, Allbooks Reviews

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:

If you love Italy, or want to visit, you MUST read this bookSep 25, 2003

I have just finished reading Tuscan Echoes, a Season in Italy and had to take a moment to comment. I have read a lot of other works about Tuscany, most recently 'Under the Tuscan Sun.' What Mark is able to achieve in his work is a unique, unusually sensuous, passionate look into the lives of Italians. Rather than make the usual pass at museums and art galleries, the more typical tourist attractions, he directs our attention to the small, hardly noticed, moments in the day-to-day lives of Italians. His visions of travelling across Tuscany and Umbria and his ability to put me in the places he writes about is so rare that I found myself putting the book down, from time to time, closing my eyes and taking a moment to see myself in the places he describes. It seems to me that this book is ideal for both the travelled visitor to Italy as well as the the first time visitor who seeks the unusual, less traveled, by-ways of Italy. You should read this book!

5 of 6 found the following review helpful:

A stunning debut. A marvelous work.Dec 09, 2003

Exquisite travelogue memoir of author Smith's "season in Italy," notable for its richly descriptive passages about place, its tenderness of spirit, and its remarkable effectiveness at translating with exactitude, the grand sense of nostalgia Smith feels for "the sights and sounds that have haunted" his dreams for years.

Writes he:

"The wood-covered hills of Monte Subasio, above Assisi, were well known to Saint Francis. Before our class meets each day, there is time to explore the many paths that cross the mountain. The fresh air and cooling shadows of the forest offer welcome privacy from the city below. I spend a part of each day in the high reaches of the hills. As I approach the intersection of two paths, I stop to take in the view.

Trees on each side of the trail gather closer overhead and rise to a meeting point, creating an archway. The shade-dappled path leads up into a nave as light, filtering through trees, takes on the colors of stained-glass windows. The sun pierces through the pine-scented haze of woodland air; its rays fall on the dusty, earthen floor. Birds move back and forth across the path, their music filling the air."

Readers join Smith for a vicarious trip to Tuscany, Umbria, Assisi and Venice - and to Florence and its surrounds, where in the 1950s Smith and his family lived along the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Smith entered the corporate business world - and then left that world to write - and owners of Tuscan Echoes will be especially glad that he did.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

A blend of memoir and philosophyDec 14, 2003
By Midwest Book Review
Tuscan Echoes: A Season In Italy by Mark Gordon Smith brings together a blend of memoir and philosophy in the author's varied, sometimes eccentric, yet always engaging ruminations upon Italy. Memories of Italian childhood are combined with a modern-day revisit and a dedicated quest to perceive and understand what is the essence of Italian life and culture. An articulate and attention engaging addition to any library biography collection, Tuscan Echoes is a superb and original extended meditation on nationality and identity.