Ferenc Mate

This book is a true-life adventure of a couple who did what most of us only dream of doing: they gave up the rat race of the big city for a new life in Tuscany. Candace and Ferenc Mate - she a painter, he a writer - arrive from New York in the late 1980s knowing almost no Italian, and with only four weeks to find a country house to live in. They finally conclude the deal on the hood of a rusting tractor, with the agents speaking Italian and them responding in French, English and Hungarian - a Tower of Babel version of Who's on First. So begins Ferenc Mate's memoir of their first year in this enchanted place. Living in an ancient farmhouse in the spectacular hills where The English Patient was filmed, he brings to life the real Tuscany: the neighbors, the countryside, country life, the farm family down the road who virtually adopt them and with whom they relive centuries-old traditions - the harvest, grape picking, wine making, mushroom hunting, woodcutting, the holidays, and, of course, the almost never-ending, mouthwatering feasts.

"In A Vineyard in Tuscany, we travel with the Mates - Candace, a painter, Ferenc, a writer - through the winding cypress-lined roads of Tuscany to the ancient hill-town of Montalcino, home of the fabled Brunello. Here, they buy a 13th-century friary on a hill surrounded by 60 acres of forest, olives, and potential vineyards." "From taming a runaway tractor to battling volcanic fermenting vats, Ferenc Mate takes us through the adventures and misadventures of renovating an 800-year-old house, planting 15 acres of vines, starting the winery, and, finally, la Vendemmia - the first harvest, followed by the thrill of wine-making. They learn from world-famous vintner neighbors like Angelo Gaja the secrets of how to grow the best grapes and make superb wines."--Jacket.

"This sun-drenched land has become synonymous with the ideal life. But it didn't happen by chance. Since the Etruscans, the independence-loving Tuscans have treated their breathtaking countryside with sagacious respect and built hamlets and hill towns in which they perfected a culture of simplicity, beauty, neighborliness, good food, and love of daily life. Ferenc Mate has lived in Tuscany for twenty years. Through personal experience and anecdotal history he explores the sources of this idyllic existence, which provides continuous economic stability, physical and emotional security, and a fortifying sense of belonging. From their organic gardens to their mouthwatering cuisine, from high-quality, craftsmen-made products and family-run businesses, to the joys centered in human contact and community, Tuscans live a healthy, all-senses-satisfying, emotionally rich life. Mate-engaging, funny, and insightful-nudges us all to live like Tuscans. With our frantic world so storm-tossed and rudderless, this might just be the book for our times."--Publisher's description.

After breaking out of a Mexican prison in 1921, sea captain Dugger, his lover, Kate, and first mate, Nello, set sail for the South Seas on a torturous voyage that will test their friendship, love and faith.

" 'We seem to have forgotten what life is about.' So begins this heartfelt, laugh-out-loud follow-up to Máté's cult classic, A reasonable life. He warns us that, lulled by electronic pacifiers and hypnotized by sublime greed, we are sinking into a perpetual stupor: physically inert, intellectually blinkered, and devoid of deep emotion. Our unquestioned obsession with goods and gadgets has displaced true and lasting joys like our health, creativity, fulfillment, and, most importantly, our time spent with one another." --Book jacket.