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Summary: Marvelous book, great read.
Review: A real gem, interestingly written. I cannot wait to read the sequel, "Ripe For The Picking," unfortunately not on amazon in the US but from amazon.uk!
I'll be ordering three or four additional copies of "Extra Virgin" to fill stockings this Christmas. Terrific little book, very highly recommended. You will want to up and move to the village she describes no more than 100 pages into the book.
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Summary: A real-life look at living abroad
Review: Don't let the soppy title fool you - Extra Virgin is an excellent memoir of the author's life in small-town Italy. Annie Hawes has created a down-to-earth (and back-to-the-earth) book that, in addition to an excellent description of life in Liguria, gives a close up look at topics we can all relate to: learning to maintain and improve that first house, fitting in to a new place, adjusting to new customs.Probably the main strength of the book, though, is Hawes' portrait of her adopted home town and its changes through the years. She has lived at least half the year in Diano San Pietro for 20 years; she's become at least as Ligurian as English, while her town has become more modern and continental - but only a bit. Reading about Hawes' transformation, I learned along with her - about the excellent reasons behind some of the strange peasant beliefs, about the culture and society of rural Northern Italy, and about the everyday life of a small Italian town. In the background are other stories, equally involving: the small gossips, scandals, and events of 20 years in one place. One of Hawes' virtues is to make her neighbors and friends seem real, with real-person traits and flaws, rather than merely colorful characters, especially as time progresses within the book. The book itself is a pleasant, fun read. Hawes writes with a lot of gentle and mostly self-directed humor, and her style is breezy and light. It's easy to identify with her, also, both because of the style and because of the life she describes; I felt less a spectator and more a sympathizer in her struggles and delights. All in all, Extra Virgin is one of the most enjoyable and knowledgeable living-in-Italy books I've read to date, and it lacks the self-conscious, overblown prose stylings that have rendered some similar books less engaging. I would recommend this to anyone who loves Italy or travel; it's a book worth reading and owning.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to get into...
Review: I bought this book with the hopes of enjoying it while sitting on the beach. Perhaps the genre wasn't exactly my idea of 'beach read' material -- I ended up trekking to the bookstore for another book. However, I did come back to Extra Virgin -- just couldn't get the characters and their adventures out of my mind. As a result, I'll buy the sequel. It just wasn't as much of a page turner as I had hoped.
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Summary: Extra Virgin is the Greatest
Review: I have yet to read a book that hit home like this book did. Being married to an Italian for 16 years and visiting in-laws 8 times, I related to this book as if I wrote myself. It was delightful, funny, truthful, in such a loving way to the wonderful people of Italy. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has ever visited Italy, has Italian relatives or good friends. If you've been there, it's a wonderful connective experience, if you have relatives, it's a wonderful explanation for why things are as they are. I love this book and have recommended it to every Italian and non-Italian I know. Great Job, Annie!
Rating:
Summary: Hard to get into...
Review: I read this book on a recommendation from a casual acquaintance and, despite the book's slow start, I'm glad I hung in there and gave it a chance. The beginning of the book shows Annie Hawes and her sister being swept along by the customs of daily Ligurian life. They bumble around amiably, and before long, they find themselves buying a broken-down house. The book starts to get interesting once the women are settled in the house and begin to cultivate relationships with the townspeople, Ligurian peasants who are charming and maddening by turns. Much is made of farming and food -- particularly the growing of olives and the process by which olive oil is made. The sisters' house is up a treacherous pathway, and we're told stories of years' worth of struggle to find a decent car, build a staircase connecting the floors of the house, hook up running water. These stories are told not with "money pit"-like out-and-out humor, but with a lightheartedness and a unique respect for preserving the rustic condition and context of the sisters' home. Even after the women have been living in Liguria for years, they are still regarded somewhat as _stranieri_, strangers, foreigners with odd ways. Yet they are trusted enough to be welcomed into homes all over the village. They learn the ways of the "hanky-headed" olive-farming men and get used to being mourned over for not having any husbands to work in the fields for them. The book takes place over a long period of time and, in that expanse, we see the Ligurian village go from a backwater to a flourishing center of olive oil production. We see Italian politics change, though not easily. We see the womens' friends grow old, move on, pass away. The dry English humor (I loved the Capital Letters that another reviewer found annoying) and heartfelt storytelling made me feel as though I had been welcomed into the village.
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Summary: Another engaging expatriate memoir
Review: If you're a fan of Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes, and Chris Stewart, add Annie Hawes to your reading list. At first skeptical about the subject ("Not ANOTHER book about moving abroad and fixing up an old house in the country!"), I was immediately enchanted by Hawes's take on it. Her style is closer to Mayle than Mayes, mostly because of her wonderful British wit and turning of a phrase, so Italy is described in a different way; and her rendering of the rural landscape and its inhabitants match Stewart's in detail and affection. Even if you've read a lot of books on Italy and expats living in sunny Mediterranean climes, crack "Extra Virgin". You won't be disappointed!
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Summary: Charming!
Review: Many excellent reviews have been written for this book and quite frankly I can add little more. But I cannot resist writing a few words after reading and tremendously enjoying this rather charming memoir. The author chronicled her somewhat adventurous settling in the Italian Riviera through (almost impulsively) buying a very old farmhouse - with a few dozen olive trees to go with it, and struggling to make it a home, and herself and her sister part of the community. San Pietro was not exactly known for being hospitable to outsiders, how did this pair of foreign females (extra virgins) manage to get accepted as part of the community - in fact, practically as everyone's darlings? Well, they were friendly, respectful, open-minded, conscientious, and armed with a tremendous sense of humor. Besides learning a good deal about the life style and food fares of the Northern Italian peasantry, the landscape and climate of the place, and the folklores and sentiment of the locals - all through a gracious style of writing, with wit and humor in good measure, I must say I also learn from the author much wisdom for getting to know and live with strangers in a strange place. If you have not read this book, you should not wait any longer.
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Summary: Wonderful Affectionate Tale
Review: Over the course of the past couple of years several of my friends have moved to Italy. One is an expat returning to Italy and the other is an american transplant. Annie Hawes story of her time in Liguria is probably one of the most "real" expats in Italy stories I have ever read. She isn't rich and doesn't have 1/2 a million to pour into creating a showpiece. She buys a ramshackle farm house and to this day its still pretty ramshackle (course if this book hits the best seller list who knows?). Anne Hawes is living my dream. She writes of her day to day experiences. Some of the same things that she experiences have happened to my friends. I feel like she is doing just what I would do. I'd go exploring broken down houses. If somebody offered me a smoking deal I'd probably buy it and then try to work out how to live there at least part of the year. Anne Hawes writes with affection and consideration for her friends and neighbors. Her Italy life and her Italy house are built on this foundation of respect and affection. I only hope that when my "Italy life" happens it is half as full as Anne's.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Let the Title Fool You
Review: Readers might miss this book solely because of its silly title. "Extra Virgin" has really nothing to do with the story except that olive oil is made in the region. And that ridiculous subtitle--"A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted"--suggests the kind of soft-centered, caramel-dipped, high-fructose prose found in Harlequin Romances... This is not a gooey romance written by a birdbrain but a consistently engaging tale of a young Brit and her sister who take seasonal work harvesting olives in a little-known peasant village in a lesser-known region of Italy--and end up buying a houdse there. The opening drags a bit. The author struggles with her pose as the bright young thing taking the traditional Brit's view of benighted foreign peasantry. Too pert by half, frankly. But what makes this book work is that the author observes closely, learns, and grows--grows up, too. She began by thinking of her neighbors as jolly but backward folk who just love to feed people--and keep on feeding them. So typically Italian! Well, she gets over this; she begins to understand that these people actually know a thing or two and even know things she doesn't. As a result her prose calms down and her story moves along pretty briskly. There's humor and passion as she and her neighbors come to terms with each other--and as she increasingly becomes not merely a summer visitor but a person who comes to have some standing as a genuine member of her community. The change occurs gradually through innumerable small steps (steps too small to mean much if taken out of context in a review) and one large event that can't be discussed because it would give away far too much. Look at it this way: We've had the sugary stuff of "Enchanted April" and the cold and cynical exploitation of "A Year in Provence." Annie Hawes's story is different; it might even be what would happen to you or me.
Rating: 
Summary: Devastating
Review: This book-on-tape was so good until the final chapter, where it became so horrible that I could not even finish it. I can't believe the publisher allowed such a cheap-shot ending. Why would the author finish such a lovely read with a fast tragic ending. A terrible disappointment.
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