- Hardcover: 346 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown & Company; First Edition edition (28 July 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0316724858
- ISBN-13: 978-0316724852
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13.6 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,052,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Love In Idleness
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
A Tuscan holiday with four couples plus children which turns into something of a nightmare but ends well. It is all planned carefully, but before the end all have swapped partners and the romantic comedy takes on a feeling of fantasy with the children inevitably involved in what is happening. It is a delightful comedy, which will enhance any summer activity. The author is a well-known journalist and broadcaster who has a wicked sense of humour and a splendid quality of observation for human foibles.
INDEPENDENT – Barbara Trapido
'Carefully plotted, its prose sharp, its characters nicely, sometimes mischievously, observed…both enjoyable and clever'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
The long wooden shutters of the Casa Luna, bolted against heat and crime, were flung open, and the light of a new day flooded in. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The long wooden shutters of the Casa Luna, bolted against heat and crime, were flung open, and the light of a new day flooded in. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Once again, Amanda Craig has woven a spell over this reader! What a truly delightful novel - lighter than In a Dark Wood, but no less funny, wise and beautifully written. Concerning a group of friends and relations who go away for a fortnight to the Casa Luna, where their bored children create mischief, it explores the difference in love, work and generosity between English and American people. The characters are completely believeable, moving in and out of the serious and the comic, and the style is dazzling. A modern version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that never exaggerates its jokes or its sources, Love in Idleness is the ultimate novel to take on vacation. It will make you fall in love with it, just like the "little western flower" used by Oberon. Betty, the mother-in-law from hell, is a creation of genius.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this as a Christmas present for my partner, and thought I'd just read a chapter first. I then had to lock myself away to read the rest. I can't see how anyone could dislike such a charming novel (except those envious of Craig's prodigious talent). Yes, the characters are all middle-class Americans and Brits - but aren't they in most fiction? That doesn't make them smug, as someone has claimed - in fact, at several points I wanted to kick Polly, the self-sacrificing wife and mother, in the pants for being so depressed, or did until the real reasons for it were revealed.
As other reviewers have said, the novel is a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the rude mechanicals left out (a pity - I was looking forward to some extra comedy there). Apart from switching the sex of all Shakespeare's characters (it is the women who pursue the men, for instance)its real touch of brilliance lies in making the three children, bored silly by holidaying in Tuscany, into the fairies. The clash between the children's world and the adults is beautifully described, but underneath it the novel asks questions about the imagination and its freedom to upset daily life, and about the choices people make when in love that are serious and worth asking. I didn't think British writers wrote novels as satisfying and intelligently witty as this any more.
As other reviewers have said, the novel is a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the rude mechanicals left out (a pity - I was looking forward to some extra comedy there). Apart from switching the sex of all Shakespeare's characters (it is the women who pursue the men, for instance)its real touch of brilliance lies in making the three children, bored silly by holidaying in Tuscany, into the fairies. The clash between the children's world and the adults is beautifully described, but underneath it the novel asks questions about the imagination and its freedom to upset daily life, and about the choices people make when in love that are serious and worth asking. I didn't think British writers wrote novels as satisfying and intelligently witty as this any more.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a novel as much as I did this one. It takes a simple idea - the holiday from hell, shared with family and friends - and gives it a fresh twist in modelling it on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a result, what at first seems to be no more than a light-hearted comedy of manners deepens into an exploration of the hazy territory between love and the imagination. The really inspired part is that the three children in the novel (Bron, Tania and Robbie) play the part of the fairies, causing the adults in their lives to fall in love with each other. The characters are all sharply defined, and the landscape around Cortona vividly evoked. An intelligent, playful and sympathetic novel it should charm many other readers besides this one.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
I've had a holiday like this one . . . .
I'm surprised at some of the negative reviews of this wonderful book. I first read it when it was first published; that was just after my Wife and I'd had a holday in Umbria (Todi... Read more
Published 11 months ago by John Mccartney
The Magic of Italy
A lovely, moving and sometimes very funny adaptation of the story of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Kate Hopkins
Really disappointing
I loved Hearts and Minds by this author so was really looking forward to this book. What a huge disappointment it turned out to be. Read more
Published 21 months ago by F. Goble
So glad I discovered this
I ordered this book after we read Hearts and Minds in our book club and I'm so glad I did. Reading it felt like going on a much needed summer holiday. Read more
Published on 11 Mar 2010 by Literature lover
Tedious read
I found this book truly awful.
The characters are one dimensional, the plot is unbelievable and awful. the dialogue is dreadful. Read more
The characters are one dimensional, the plot is unbelievable and awful. the dialogue is dreadful. Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2009 by Ally Bally G
completely delicious, unexpected rom-com
I'm intrigued by the very different readers' reviews this novel has gained. Not having read any of Craig's previous books, I have ot say that this one made me immediately buy the... Read more
Published on 20 Aug 2004
A Beautifully Composed and Magical Escape
A group of American and British people on holiday travel to the idyllic Italian setting of Casa Luna, Cortona for a fortnight and find that their expectations about what will... Read more
Published on 31 July 2004 by Eric Anderson
Like eating a box of chocolates
I found reading this book a real treat - like eating a box of chocolates - you just have to sink into it and let the story carry you away. Read more
Published on 30 July 2004 by Amy Smith
Lovely countryside, less appealing characters
This book seems to lie uneasily between chick-lit and travelogue, with the travelogue side winning - it certainly made me want to visit the area described, but the characters... Read more
Published on 21 July 2004
Ivo Sponge is back!
If you haven't read A Vicious Circle then you probably won't understand the thrill of encountering this irresistibly awful man again. Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2004 by "amy17148"
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
