Rating: 
Summary: More than a travelogue
Review: An interesting and absorbing story about a life style centuries old that is on the verge of disappearing. Theresa Maggio writes beautifully and her affection for the setting she describes is obvious and contagious.The fishing details are fascinating but what resonates here is her love of the place and its people.
Rating:
Summary: More than a travelogue
Review: An interesting and absorbing story about a life style centuries old that is on the verge of disappearing. Theresa Maggio writes beautifully and her affection for the setting she describes is obvious and contagious.The fishing details are fascinating but what resonates here is her love of the place and its people.
Rating: 
Summary: Magnificent creatures
Review: Fishing stories occasionally transcend the type to achieve the status of literature. The Old Man and the Sea, and A River Runs Through It are two good examples. This wonderful book is in that category. Bluefin tuna, which reach 1,500 lbs, are some of the most magnificent creatures in the sea. Maggio describes how they are caught by fisherman off a small island near Sicily, using techniques that date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. She's documented a way of life approaching extinction. It's as worthy of documentation as the Indians of the Great Plains and the buffalo in the mid to late 19th century. This is a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent creatures
Review: Fishing stories occasionally transcend the type to achieve the status of literature. The Old Man and the Sea, and A River Runs Through It are two good examples. This wonderful book is in that category. Bluefin tuna, which reach 1,500 lbs, are some of the most magnificent creatures in the sea. Maggio describes how they are caught by fisherman off a small island near Sicily, using techniques that date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. She's documented a way of life approaching extinction. It's as worthy of documentation as the Indians of the Great Plains and the buffalo in the mid to late 19th century. This is a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Mattanza Love & Death on the Sea of Sicily
Review: I find Theresa Maggio's fluid style of writing makes me feel that I have actually witnessed what she has described through words. After reading "Mattanza", I felt sad that this ritual is a dying traditon. Maggio has captured another world and brought it into our culture. Thank You Ms. Maggio for this armchair adventure.
Rating:
Summary: Life and ritual in the Mediterranean
Review: I picked up this book as part of my recent Mediterranean travel book kick.The book is more romance than reportage, as Maggio tries to capture the life, rhythm, rituals, myths, and, yes, romance of life on the island, centering her story on the fishermen who deploy the nets and traps that gather hundreds of the giant bluefins for slaughter. The tuna once made the island prosperous, but declining numbers of fish and competition from long-line trawlers has taken its toll (the island's cannery closed in 1981, throwing a thousand people out of work), and soon the ritual of the mattanza will probably disappear from Favignana, leaving pretty much nothing but tourism behind. (As a reader in Tokyo, I was surprised to see a Japan connection: it's Japan's voracious appetite for sashimi that's helping keep the mattanza going: when the bluefin tuna are slaughtered, the Japanese are waiting to send them off to the tuna auction at giant Tsukiji Wholesale Market in Tokyo. Maggio includes a rather over-the-top chapter about Japanese sushi, exaggerating (in my opinion) the ritual and price of sushi: she quotes 10-year-old Bubble-Era prices for tuna (in 1992, she says, a 715-pound bluefin was sold for $83,500, or about $117 a pound) and extrapolates from that, despite the fact that the average price is a very small fraction of that peak. (The kind of highly stylized sushi places she describes, where they sell toro for $75 a plate, are places I've never set foot in and probably never will: I go to the far more common, far more plebian "kaiten zushi" (conveyor belt sushi) restaurants, where I can snarf down maguro and toro for about $1 to 2 a plate. Sure, the fish isn't the highest quality, the atmosphere is utilitarian, and the wasabi is reconstituted from powder, but it's still tasty and, I think, a more usual experience than the romantic and ritualistic kind Maggio describes.) But I like the book, I must say. Maybe I'll tackle the Lawrence Durell book on Corfu on my shelf next.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book which takes you on a trip with the author.
Review: Mattanza Love and Death In The Sea of Sicily by Theresa Maggio pulls you into the world of the men and customs found only on this small island. Theresa Maggio not only tells a wonderful story, but she is able to paint the scenes and views she has seen into the readers mind. You can see the colorful boats owned by the fishermen, smell the drying nets as they hang in the damp cannery building, and feel the warm sun as she rides her bike from her tiny room into the piazza to wait for her voyage to the chamber of death out at sea. I am always looking in the NYT travel section for Miss Maggio's travel stories which have appeared over the years. Her photographs are wonderful and revealing of a time and tempo of the villages she visits and shares with us. Her book is scientifically accurate, honest and a very lovely read.
Rating:
Summary: Get Sweaty
Review: Sicilians perform dramatic killing rituals. Traveling lady gets down with the local men. Greed destroys nature and wrecks a proud island culture.
Whatever way you cut it, this is a passionate jewel of a book. I can't imagine how many drafts the author wrote to distill her years of meticulous note-taking. Every chapter has a photo or drawing, a delightful touch that only suggests the thousands of such shots she must have taken. Maggio's sensuous observations of the island, her candid personal impressions, and her subtle political commentary will make you think -- and sweat. (This review refers to the earlier edition with the less hyped title.)
Rating:
Summary: Great Summer Read
Review: Summertime is the perfect time to read a story about life and the sea. Theresa Maggio brought me along to a way of life that is slowly disappearing. But while it's still here, I got to know the fishermen and experience a way of life that has not changed in centuries. When everything in the world seems to be changing so fast, it's a comfort to read of a place that strives to hang on to the old.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and fun book!
Review: Theresa Maggio has a beautiful writing style, which is very descriptive. The book, "Mattanza," begins with a bang, when Maggio describes the first time she views the trapping and killing of bluefin tuna. As I read her description of the mattanza, I found it awesome, fascinating and sad. I could actually visualize the fishermen and the giant bluefin tuna. I could envision both fishes and men struggling to win their own goal - life. The origins of the mattanza ritual are interesting. Maggio explains it in such a way that keeps you wanting to know more. I also enjoyed the fact that the book is not only about the mattanza. It is also about Maggio's stay in Favignana -- the people she met, her relationship with them and the fishermen. After reading the book, I felt as if I knew and understood the fishermen who perform the mattanza. If you're looking for a different book on Italy, a place where classical mythology is said to have occurred, a book filled with interesting natural history facts, culture, and sprinkled with a little romance, "Mattanza" is the book for you!
| 
