"Every Day in Tuscany"

Frances Mayes came to speak in Menlo Park! I love being on bestselling authors' beaten path. Was so surprised to hear her speak with a Southern accent. Vaguely remembered her being from San Francisco in Under the Tuscan Sun, when in fact, she's from Georgia!

Thoroughly enjoyed her reading and could relate to how she felt that by living in Europe she'd been given "the gift of a new and very old country--a whole other sphere of language, literature, history, architecture, art: it falls over me like a shower of gold."

When I went to buy her book from the display table afterwards, I was so disappointed to find all the copies already taken. Thought I'd browse Kepler's bestseller shelf anyway before going home, and incredibly there in Slot #6 was...a single, unnoticed display copy of Every Day in Tuscany. I snatched it right up and felt very lucky to have Mayes inscribe it for me!