Leavitt and Mitchell's book reads like a conversation one would have with a good girlfriend over a fattening brownie and coffee. They divulge the dirt on fellow townies and poke fun at themselves -- mostly over decorating disasters, such as the orange walls they ended up with when they asked for a "a pale earth pigment based colour" called "single cream." Candid and unpretentious, In Maremma leaves the reader wanting even more tales from the duo.

Unlike other authors, who focus mostly on the gastronomic pleasures of Italy, Leavitt and Mitchell confess to getting sick of pesto, prosciutto, ricotta, and pasta. At one point, after three years of dining on fine Italian food, they craved nothing so much as peanut butter. Coco Puffs. BLTs. Even Big Macs! But shhh -- don't tell that to the people back home in America: "On visits home we behaved grandly, lorded our superior knowledge of European cookery over our friends and families, even corrected their errors. ('No, you never put parmesan cheese on clam sauce!')."

From the catchy chapter titles, such as "The House We Did Not Buy" and "Boredom," to the authors' anecdotes of how they morphed into Italians, In Maremma keeps the reader enraptured. (Soozan Baxter)