What a wonderful little novel! If you love Italy as I do, you will love this story as it leads you through the day to day life of this interesting and colorful heroine throughout the city of Venice. Diplaced, lonely, living in this city that couldnt be further away from Saint Louis, Missouri in every way, she builds a new life for herself. The story is full of cooking, eating and enjoying the food of Venice as well as the people who live there.

The main character of this book Marlena, a chef from St Louis, is visiting Venice for one of the many times she goes there. This time , a Venitian ,as she comes to call him, notices her and her life changes forever. This memoir tells of her life setting up house with the Venitian, her forays into the markets and her recipes and meals. De Blasi has lovely words to describe the scenes and the smells and the tastes as she explores Venice with her new husband. Some of the description may be over the top but Melena lives life that way.

I love Marlena's Book, all of them! Please write more.... I'm waiting! This book, A Thousand Days in Venice, is another one of her magnifico writings, which is also a true memoir of her life. I like to read a book that is "real life" happenings! I've been taking two tour groups to Italy twice a year now for seven years. I also travel to Italy and France to the markets for my store. I love the markets, especially in Italy. And, Marlena describes them well. My extended Dad, is born and raised in Sicily, and now lives in Tuscany, which is wonderful! I am in Italy as much as the United States. Marlena describes Venice, as well as the many other places in Italy, so well. Reading her books, puts you right there with her, and that's a wonderful thing when reading! I also like the balance in her books; she doesn't talk too much about food, but keeps a balance. Lately, I've read too many books about Italy, that are so boring and too much like the others out there. Not Marlena's books, true stories of her life in Italy! They really entice me to keep reading and reading until the end! Thank you so much Marlena for sharing your life with others, especially those who are in love with Italy! You have probably seen me around Orvieto, Venice, and many other places, especially my big sign that reads, Decorate Ornate.com! That sign has been North to South many times. Keep up the writing, I have enjoyed your books so much! I highly recommended "all" of your books to my customers, especially those of them that go on my tours and love Italy! They have the same compliments too, wondeful book, and when is the next one?

Stephani Chance
Decorate Ornate
Gladewater, TX

This is a fabulous - - fiction or non-fiction - I am not sure which - book. Almost a fairy tale type book. It which makes those of us who have never visited Venice - yearn to do so. I wanted to walk where she walked and especially eat all the delicious foods she describes. A fantasic risk she takes in moving there to be with "the stranger" and the story winds through their getting to know each other in a daring yet believable manner. The romance of it all brought tears to my eyes many times. I loved it. Can't wait to read the next in the series.

This is the sort of romantic story you expect in the movies, not real life. To find your great love, almost by accident, in Venice, while walking through Piazza San Marco, seems impossible and yet that's exactly what happened to the author. Sharing this lovely story gives us all a chance to dream. And it isn't just ordinary sharing, but beautifully crafted description of a place that boasts an extraordinary amount of beauty. Not all is wine and roses for this implausible couple--eHarmony would never have matched them up--and yet it works on many levels and thanks to Ms. DeBlasi, we readers are allowed a glimpse into an inner life in Venice which leaves us wanting more--and luckily, following stories by Ms. DeBlasi provide that.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I do rate it a five. Besides, I got a few extra ideas for dinner. What more can anyone want? It's a book about love, and the changes one makes in their life for love. It has a beautiful ending. I liked this book so well that I purchased several of Marlena De Blasi's other books.

This book was recommended as a better read than the current best seller, Eat Pray Love. While they are superficially similar, in that both authors love Italian culture, food and the joy of living, this book is more in depth at giving a flavor of Venice and background into Italian culture, through the eyes of an american visitor.
The author describes the many steps necessary to make the transition as an american into a country with ancient, almost ingrained customs. Her love of Italy, the food and the traditions, comes through with gusto.
This is also a memoir of an unlikely middle age romance, which is refreshing, even when things don't go smoothly within the marriage.
As a counterpart to studying Italian conversation and language, this is a wonderful book about Italy and Venice and Italy's people, and what they've survived. I have gone on to read the 2 subsequent books about the couple's travels and adventures in other regions of Italy.

I thoroughly delighted in this true story only after getting through the preposterous, high fructose corn syrup sappy, first 20 pages - factual though they may be. Having guffawed, rolled my eyes, and saying out loud to no one, "I am not reading this!" at page 12, weeks later I picked it up with my interest piqued and didn't put it back down until the end. Marlena is an intelligent writer, never wasteful with her perfect words and allusions. She was enraptured with her Italian settings and immersed in them, not distant from their ancient exoticism like so many authors who prattle on with some cold, repeated, textbook authority. I would read anything by her again in a heartbeat. There is purity and security both in her romance and her writing. Actually she is pretty inspirational by simply following her heart, her loves.

If you are looking for a wonderfully human story of pure delight, this is the book for you... It gives you a real flavor for one of the most romantic cities in Italy.... You can almost smell the food... and feel the puch of the tourists... She is steeped in the Italian experience...

In a world of multitudes of choices, Marlena chose the road (or actually, waterway), less travelled. She fell in love with someone she barely knew and moved half way round the world in the process. She opted for the unexpected - an adventure. I chose Marlena's story as my "beach read" this summer and it was perfect. It's quick and light - fun! She didn't weigh her story down with complaints about how different we all are - she chose the language of love (and food) to find commonality - yet she still added charming stories that suggested how Italian lifestyle and priorities are a bit different from Americans. Instead or wondering "what if..." - she did it! What a brave soul!

Reading De Blasi's story is like going to Venice in person. Love her comments on italian men and all her recipes that come with the book.

I was really impressed by the author's honesty in chronicling her new life in Venice and the changes that came with her marriage. She didn't sugarcoat the bad parts and unlike others, I understood the narrative reason why she continued to call her husband "the stranger". Who has not gotten married and at one time or another thought, "Who is this? Did I marry this person?"
I loved her attention to detail of Venetian life and culture and the care in which she described the people she came in contact with. A truly enjoyable book from cover to cover...and some day I'll be brave enough to try the recipes in the back!

Blasi's little story of her whirlwind romance does not read conventionally, as a novel with readily discernible plotting and themes would. This is not to say the book is difficult, since it is not: the prose is clear and straightforward. However, "1000 days" is far more introspective than a typical armchair traveler read, and this makes it more about Blasi's inner life and the changes in attitude and values she experiences after deciding to change her circumstances.
I found it an extraordinarily thoughtful and intimate book, almost like reading a personal diary, and the embellishments of an exotic locale and gourmet recipes did not turn it into another cliched "life with the eccentric locals of generic popular place #4". Instead I found myself absorbed in Blasi and her choices. I will look for more by this author.

This book was a nice read, nice little "fantasy". I enjoyed her description of the sights and smells of Venice. I imagined myself moving to a foreign land, learning to fit in, making new friends, learning the customs. I would have had difficulty being so trusting of the "Stranger", but her story inspires me and reminds me that I can change course at any time to reshape my destiny. Life, if we are lucky, is long, and full of possibility. Lesson learned-Dare to dream-then go for it!

I was looking forward to this book but was disappointed. I just could not connect with the author which I think is a very important part of enjoying this genre of reading. She seemed to jump into life-altering things without a lot of thought and then expects the reader to be sympathetic. It is just okay - I have read much worse but also many that are far superior. It is written with the author at the center rather than with the author trying to learn about and become part of place as the central theme. Hard to describe - but something important was missing that kept me from becoming emotionally involved with the author - I just wanted to say 'stop complaining - why didn't you think this out before?".

When my mother was only twenty-one, she traveled to the Adriatic coast and fell under the spell of a handsome, Italian "stranger", a scenario not too unlike the one described in this book by author Marlena DeBlasi. Perhaps due to the nature of their youth, their romance was not to have the happy ending of this story's heroine, a mature woman who comes to love and marraige with a much different perspective, one where relationships are more about making compromise and finding comfort instead of the idealistic notions of love we have when we're younger.

My mother, in fact, recommended this book to me, noting how much she recognized of De Blasi's experiences adapting to the Italian ways of life, her place as an outsider and also as a woman who must learn the social customs and expectations of this old world country. The little details bring every scene to life, from the authors' friendships made in the marketplaces to the struggles of organizing her wedding and the beurocracies of the church and local government. The details sometimes become a bit too excessive, the language a bit flowery for my taste, but perhaps that is only standard for a romance--I admit that I almost never pick up a book labelled as a romance as it is not particularly my genre of choice as a reader. But I am glad I made an exception in this case.

I will in fact be travelling to Venice for the first time this year, and this book has provided a wonderful introduction to the city, besides a moving story of love and romance. Not all may be able to understand or agree with the choices De Blasi made in her life with "the stranger", but there is wisdom in her words that should at least leave most readers with things to reflect upon, to decide what in their lives are truly important.

GREAT BOOK. SO GLAD TO HAVE READ IT. I CONTINUE TO PURCHASE IT AND GIVE TO FRIENDS. LOVED THE STORY AND THE RECIPES INCLJUDED IN IT. I TRULY FELT THAT I TOO WAS LIVING IN VENICE AS I EXPERIENCED THE STORY WITH THE WRITER. SO VERY WELL WRITTEN.

Few books make me both misty-eyed and laugh out loud... This was one of them. Can't recommend it highly enough, even if you don't care to move to Venice in the near future.

I felt obliged to give this four stars instead of five only because I could not relate with Mrs. De Blasi not matter how hard I tried (did that rhyme?). And I DID try - very hard in fact. I found myself WANTING to relate because her's was SUCH a story of faith and risk and love and adventure. But at the end of the day, I, personally, would have booted Mr. Moody, "the stranger" out on his butt in two shakes and told him to paddle his sorry behind back down the canal.

Now on the OTHER hand - a fantastic food read!! And I read a ton of books about food! This book has actually earned a highly revered spot on my kitchen counter bookshelf. With limited space, this is a true honor for any cookbook, let alone a novel! I have "post-it'ed" about 12 pages of recipes and even descriptions of food that I have tried to copy (I seriously make the leek gratin about every other week and eat so much I make myself sick and swear to never make it again, but look forward to the day I do!).

So, though the love story was a bit contrived at times and she skips around leaving HUGE gaps of time unaccounted for (something that irks me awful!), I melted, MELTED at her descriptions of dishes. Right up there with Frances Mayes, for sure.

I also found the directive at the end for how to spend a day/week/longer in Venice extremely enticing! Made me want to go back to Venice and do it right!

This book is truly magnificent. It is a beautiful and very realistic love story (both with the country and the man). I identified very much with the story and with Marlena's character and her willingness to put-up with a difficult husband that she is very much in love with. Marlena De Blasi is an inspiration to everyone who wishes to "always be a beginner" and who wants to live life to the fullest. This is also a very sensual book, so many flavors, smells, sensations.

I admire Marlena's courage, spontaneity and positive outlook on life. I could only hope to be able to grow young like her --which must be quite difficult, as I hardly know anybody who is like that at any age. This book was much more than I expected and likely the only book that has made me cry when describing a wedding given the fact that I hate the whole female obsession with weddings and don't really belive in marriage--or maybe now I do? It made me want to propose to my live-in boyfriend, who I also love very much, difficult personalities (of both of us) and all.

Just have to echo what others have said. On the whole I liked this; I read it on the plane to Venice, then skimmed through it again near the end of our stay. I loved her descriptions of Venice, food, culture clashes, getting the wedding dress made... but I could NOT understand the appeal of her husband, Fernando! He just sounds like a desperate, dorky, nerdy loser who throws himself at her just because he "fell in love with her profile" -- and he gets worse, not better, as the book progresses. I'm an impulsive romantic and tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, but I can't believe I'd be so reckless and dumb as to throw my life away on a guy I didn't even know. I'm amazed that their relationship has lasted even five years.

Marlena De Blasi was a chef and food writer of a certain age. She was in Venice when she met a Venitian banker who fell in love with her at first sight and set about winning her heart. In reading this book, the cautious part of me kept on wanting to tell the author to back off, rent an exotic apartment in Venice, and really get to know her "Stranger" before selling her home and leaving her whole life in the U.S. behind. Another part of me wanted her to go for it, even though the chances were she would end up with a broken heart and no home to run to. De Blasi has so much enthusiasm, about food and life and beauty, that the reader feels like they are being told the story by a girlfriend over lunch. I especially love her detailed descriptions of the street market she discovers in her new home. Of course I could not help but feel forboding when she discovers the banker's home is a charmless apartment in a nasty concrete building, and when his tendency toward depression and bullying start to show themselves. But as Nicholas Cage said in the movie "Moonstruck", maybe we are meant to fall in love with the wrong people and make fools of ourselves. I look forward to reading more about De Blasi's adventures in Italy.

The setting of Venice is as much a character as Marlena and "the stranger". I wondered if she was really in love with the stranger or was it just the magic of Venice. It is a wonderful story of unexpectedly falling in love and doing something very impulsive (selling everything and moving to another country) which is a fantasy for many women but middle aged people don't usually go through with it. Reality eventually set in and if I were Marlena I would have kicked
Fernando to the curb and gone back home rather than deal with all his moodiness. I think she had a huge amount of patience with and trust in someone she barely knew. So it must have been true love but she never did explain why she fell in love with him. If was evident that she represented freedom and noncomformity to him but I never quite understood her motivation.

What the book did do was make ME fall in love with Venice. I started drinking prosecco and having "aperitivi" every night, cooking Italian and even booked a trip to Italy for this fall! The story definitely transported me and that always means it was a good book!

Rather than overplay the fairytale aspect of her story, De Blasi gives an honest picture of two headstrong people coming together after spending years set in their ways. She must come to terms with the fantasy of living in Venice and the realities of life in an unfamiliar place which has its own set of rules and codes. If this book doesn't convince you that destiny is at work in the world, it's hard to imagine what will.

Most of my favorite books vividly evoke a place, and this one is no different. De Blasi shares her Venice, and her romance, in this delightful memoir. It's been well described, so I won't summarize it. It's a book that, like a good meal, must be experienced to be appreciated.

Readers looking for a travelogue or cookbook may be disappointed, but that isn't de Blasi's fault-- she beautifully accomplishes what she sets out to do, which is to offer a glimpse of romance and beauty, and a look at a different world. The story of her romance isn't strange to me, as my own marriage began similarly nearly 25 years ago. It happens, but only, I think to those open to serendipity, and de Blasi certainly is.

Although there will be prosaic naysayers who simply don't get it, this is a book I'l read many times. I highly recommend it for armchair travellers and those who believe in serendipity!

I rarely write book reviews, but I had to warn people about this book. This is a prime example of a desperate, pathetic woman. If there are any really independent women out there who don't feel so desperate for a man that they are willing to move halfway across the world, don't buy this book.

If I didn't know a couple who had a similar experience (except that the locations involved were France and California) I would probably be more dismissive of her wirl-wind relationship with "Peter Sellers." But instead I found myself comparing the ins and outs of their relationship to those details of my parents' friends and nodding knowingly when things matched up.

I simply love the way DiBlasi puts words together in this book. I keep a notebook of phrases and sentences that I find particularly lyrical, and I wrote down 8 or 10 of them from this autobiographical work. I really enjoyed it. My husband also enjoyed it although he wanted closure at the end of the book, and there is none!

What more could you want? Better writing, for one. In the acknowledgments at the end, de Blasi says of her editor, "everywhere in this text that three adjectives remain still lined up in a row is a result of my stubbornness, a sign of the skirmish or two among our battles that Amy let me win." I wish Amy had fought harder!

It's a romantic story. American food writer and chef goes to Venice, meets the man of her dreams who follows her back to the States, she returns to Venice to marry him and they live happily ever after. She writes about things I love, good food, sensuous fabrics, Venetian history and culture. So why didn't I enjoy this book more?

Perhaps it's because the attraction between Marlena and Fernando isn't made real, it just sort of happens. Neither seems particularly likeable; they both come across as very controlling, very selfish people. She calls him, even now, "the stranger", and often writes of him in a very snotty and condescending manner. (How dare he not want my complicated and exotic dishes every night?!)

I had hoped for much more from this book.

When Marlena, a cookbook author and food writer from Missouri, first goes to Venice Italy in 1989, she has no way of knowing that her descent on the canaled city would have many parallels with that of Katharine Hepburn in the David Lean classic SUMMERTIME. Over the next four or five years, she makes as many visits as she can, her trips funded, or so it seems, by a steady series of freelance journalism gigs, travel articles, perhaps. Then she meets a man who looks like an Italian Peter Sellers. I have one friend, Alice, who read this book thinking until shortly before the end that indeed it was Peter Sellers.

But no, it is an Italian who falls in love with her. Very romantic, except she speaks little Italian, despite her heritage and her culinary tastes. He's handsome, goodlooking, dresses sharply, if conservatively as befits a banker, but with a hint of a repressed sexuality (she finds out that underneath his well-cut suits he wears underwear of purple silk.) And this begins a strange romance, one which will make you weep a little as you remember your own first love, and which will also make you scratch your head a bit, worrying about our heroine and what will happen to her once the clouds of love and foodie-based endorphins dissipate. I sometimes wondered if Fernando isn't bipolar or something, he seems sort of moody, such as quitting his job once he latches on to the wonderful Marlena, or if he is taking advantage of her, like Isabel Archer when she married Gilbert Osmond in Henry James' THE WINGS OF THE DOVE which similarly is set in a dark, mysterious Venice, and features a bunch of characters like Madame Merle who certainly don't mean well for Isabel.

I wonder if they are still married? Alice says that her book club is now reading the sequel, in which Fernando and Marlena move abruptly to Tuscany, where UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN takes place, and that things continue to be puzzling between the lovers, but they are still together. It just shows that perhaps, after all, what Grandma said is true, and that there's someone for everyone, and that love is made in Venice every night, as the old Burt Bacharach song used to tell us. You will enjoy the scenes of Marlena shopping in the obscure botteghe of the canals, picking up lettuces and bringing them close to her face, like Mrs. Dalloway shopping for her party, but Italian style, ringed by harsh-voiced crones and old male peasants who bark out strange commands to her as she inspects their turnips and pasta.

In A Thousand Days in Venice, author Marlena de Blasi portrays herself as the woman that Italian banker Fernando falls passionately in love with at first sight, the woman that everyone in Venice seems to be enchanted with, the American that complete strangers all over Italy are charmed by. De Blasi takes risks as a writer and as a woman. The story is not quite believable, but somehow she pulls it off.

By concentrating on the attractions and food of Venice, and by sticking to the unfolding of an unlikely love affair, de Blasi makes A Thousand Days in Venice an enjoyable story. It isn't very long before you stop thinking about how eccentric de Blasi must be in real life and just lose yourself in the romance of Venice.

There was just enough conflict here to keep A Thousand Days from being a soppy travelog. All of de Blasi's friends are convinced that she is making a dreadful mistake by giving up her house and job in Saint Louis (as she insists on spelling it) and moving to Venice to marry a man she had met only months before. Then as she gets to know Fernando better, she finds he has certain ideas about how she should dress, conduct herself, and speak. Will the romance survive the doubts and the clash of cultures?

Of course it does, and after the couple exhausts Venice with their exuberance, they move on to Tuscany to start a new life, and a new book.

The author's gifts shine in this memorable book, allowing readers everywhere to escape to the romance of Venice and vicariously tag along as DeBlasi attempts to transform Fernando's apartment and his world. Ironically, the European doesn't always appreciate the former St. Louis resident's aesthetic or culinary efforts, but the ensuing dialogue makes for riveting reading for those lucky enough to have "A Thousand Days in Venice" at their fingertips. Recipes at the back of the book allow the reader to linger in Italy: The Whole Stuffed Pumpkin and the Lemon Gelato are excellent. Highly recommended!!

This book was our August Book club selection. The club was split on liking it and hating it, it certainly gave a good discussion. Personally I liked it. Though I was just in venice a week before reading it, so perhaps I was biased. Marlena did acurately portray Venice as to the locations and sights in the book matching real life, but she left a lot of questions in peoples minds, such as she answered What and where a lot, but never a why, as in Why did she fall for peter sellers fernando? why did she move why were they leaving why why why.. though she is a cook, we did like her descriptions of things using food ajectives, but it needed to be mixed up a bit, we all got really tired of the term Blueberry eyes.. the recipes in the end are amazing.

So I guess in summary, I'd reccomend A Thousand Days in Venice, if you have been, or ever plan to go there. otherwise, you might want to make a different selection.

Eric

I have read some of the other reviews from people who are "realists" so I guess that classifies me as a dreamer. I loved this book. I liked that it was a true story and that love came along when she was least expecting it, in Venice no less. True, she jumped right into it and the odds were against her from a realist's point of view, but I love a good how-we-met story.

I started reading this about a week before I actually went to Venice for the first time (I just got back). I started flagging all the lines I liked and soon ran out of flags. The way she wrote made me feel like I could hang out and sip prosecco with her and feel completely at ease. I liked especially when she wrote about her interactions with the locals. I liked actually seeing the places she talked about. I finished the book on the plane ride home and felt I was taking a little bit of Venezia home with me. I was never so sad to leave a place as I was to leave Venice. I felt the way De Blasi felt in the last chapter (don't want to spoil it).

I checked this book out from the library because I wasn't sure I would like it, but now am going to buy it. I bought Under the Tuscan Sun and regretted not just checking it out from the library. I never finished it because I got stuck in the part where she goes on and on about pulling weeds. I bought A Thousand Days in Venice for my friend who I joined up with at the Philly airport on our way to Venice and she loved it, too.

If you, too, are a hopeless romantic, I highly recommend this book. Oh--and I highly recommend going to Venice!

This book was soo boring. I love travel books and I love Venice so I was very excited to read this book. I put it down several times and made myself finish it. I was puzzled as to why she wrote it. There was no intimacy revealed. You can't really get into her shoes and understand why she just left her life and moved to be with someone who sounds like a complete loser. They were interesting and this book was a dud.

In A Thousand Days in Venice, author Marlena de Blasi portrays herself as the woman that Italian banker Fernando falls passionately in love with at first sight, the woman that everyone in Venice seems to be enchanted with, the American that complete strangers all over Italy are charmed by. De Blasi takes risks as a writer and as a woman. The story is not quite believable, but somehow she pulls it off.

By concentrating on the attractions and food of Venice, and by sticking to the unfolding of an unlikely love affair, de Blasi makes A Thousand Days in Venice an enjoyable story. It isn't very long before you stop thinking about how eccentric de Blasi must be in real life and just lose yourself in the romance of Venice.

There was just enough conflict here to keep A Thousand Days from being a soppy travelog. All of de Blasi's friends are convinced that she is making a dreadful mistake by giving up her house and job in Saint Louis (as she insists on spelling it) and moving to Venice to marry a man she had met only months before. Then as she gets to know Fernando better, she finds he has certain ideas about how she should dress, conduct herself, and speak. Will the romance survive the doubts and the clash of cultures?

Of course it does, and after the couple exhausts Venice with their exuberance, they move on to Tuscany to start a new life, and a new book.

A Thousand Days in Venice is a true story of a romance and marriage, mostly revolving around Venice.

Ms. de Blasi is a writer and a passionate cook. In A Thousand Days in Venice she writes that she first visited Venice as a result of a writing assignment from a magazine (she was reluctant to leave Rome at the time). Ms. de Blasi has written two cookbooks on Italian food: Regional Foods of Northern Italy and Regional Foods of Southern Italy.

After her initial reluctance Ms. de Blasi visited Venice a number of times. On what turns out to be her last visit as a tourist, a Venetian tells her that he has fallen in love with her, on sight. The Venetian turns out to be Fernando, who is a bank manager in Venice. Ms. de Blasi speaks functional italian, but she is not fluent. Fernando's english is probably not even as good as Ms. de Blasi's italian. She and Fernando spend a few hours walking the streets of Venice talking. Fernando saw Ms. de Blasi the year before, walking with a man (who Ms. de Blasi never explains). He is smitten by here and can't forget her. Then he sees her a year later. He is sure that it is Destiny. There meeting again is not coincidence. It is True Love, the bolt out of the blue.

Ms. de Blasi is leaving Venice, but she promises to come back, explaining that if there really is something between them, a few months will not make any difference. In the mean time they can write and talk on the phone. Eighteen days after Ms. de Blasi returns to Saint Louis, Missouri Fernando arrives at her house.

Ms. de Blasi never tells us exactly when Fernando asks her to marry him, but we find her planning to uproot her life and move to Venice. She sells her recently remodeled house and her share in a cafe where she is the chef. She leaves behind her two grown children and all that is familiar to go off an marry Fernando.

I'm one of those people who tries to plan things before I do them. I can't imagine throwing everything aside and moving to Venice to marry someone I really hardly know. To my cynical eye the story has the flavor of a midlife crisis. Fernando has been a functionary in a sinecure job at an Italian bank that his father originally arranged for me. He reaches middle age and feels that life is draining away. He sees Ms. de Blasi and believes that she and all that she represents will save him. Ms. de Blasi is one of those admirable people who is willing to take risks and jump into the unknown.

There are, of course, the usual stories of adjusting to a new culture and place. The difficulty that Fernando and Ms. de Blasi have in gaining a marriage license is an Italian classic. I bought A Thousand Days in Venice to get a feeling for Venice, the place, and I was not disappointed. Ms. de Blasi does not work at a job in Venice and so spends some of her time alone walking around the city and exploring Venice's archives. Some of this experience comes through in the book.

An even better book is James Morris' book "Venice". Morris
is an even better writer than Ms. de Blasi and has spent
considerably more than 1000 days in Venice.

I found this book ponderous and self absorbed. Unfortunately, so much written about Venice falls into the same category, so this is not the worst of the genre by far.

The writer is obsessed with food. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing, and the passages about local specialties and famed Rialto markets were interesting. But by the end, if I had to read one more line about The Stranger's "blueberry" eyes, I thought I would scream. Eyeballs should not be described as foodstuffs. Likewise, the endless obsession with finding Mongolian lamb for her wedding outfit was tedious beyond tolerance (perhaps it was the lamb part that kept her going).

I see from other reviews that many found the book romantic, the ultimate fulfullment of a fantasy. Realists, be warned.

I don't make it a habit to read romance novels. I was happy to find a beautiful story. Marlena's writing made me feel as if I was there. I would say being nearly 40 helps to understand and connect with her thoughts, opinions and feelings. Definately a feel good read. Loved it!!

This is the best memoir I've read in years, and I'm a pretty harsh critic. I loved De Blasi's style, as well as her willingness to uncover many of her emotional vulnerabilities during the course of the book.

I'm not going to say it's perfect. There were sentences I had to read twice every now and then--clunky sentences--and sometimes there was a bit of repetition. Still, just like Venice itself with all her imperfections, the sum total of all the book's parts make it a beautiful read. (Make that a serenissima read!)

It's somehow terribly encouraging to know there are still women like Marlena De Blasi out there. She had the courage to envision a new life for herself and then go for it. I found this highly inspirational. That this romance is set in Venice only makes it all the more appealing.

Additionally, I found it compelling that she doesn't paint her relationship with her new Italian husband to be 100% rosy.

I would recommend this whole-heartedly to any Italo-philes and people who themselves may be experiencing a "mid-life change of plans."

Excuse me while I go buy all her other books.

Though the basis seemed initially farfetched, I fell in love with this book. If she wouldn't have expressed her frustration about the reality of submersing herself in a foreign land and getting to really know the person she found herself having unexplainable feelings for, the book really would have seemed too much like a fairytale. She adds just enough of reality to this to keep it passionate and believable. The way Marlene communicates gives hope to the cynical and makes a true romantic justified in his/her beliefs.

Author de Blasi portrays herself as the woman that Italian banker Fernando falls passionately in love with at first sight, the woman that everyone in Venice seems to be enchanted with, the American that complete strangers all over Italy are charmed by. This seems like a pretty risky move for a writer, and not quite believable, but somehow she pulls it off.

By concentrating on the attractions and food of Venice, and by sticking to the unfolding of an unlikely love affair, de Blasi makes A Thousand Days in Venice an enjoyable story. It isn't very long before you stop thinking about how eccentric de Blasi must be in real life and just lose yourself in the romance of Venice.

There was just enough conflict here to keep A Thousand Days from being a soppy travelogue. All of de Blasi's friends were convinced that she was making a dreadful mistake by giving up her house and job in Saint Louis (as she insists on spelling it) and moving to Venice to marry a man she had met only months before. Then as she gets to know Fernando better, she finds he has certain ideas about how she should dress, conduct herself, and speak. Will the romance survive the doubts and the clash of cultures?

Of course it does, and after the couple exhausts Venice with their exuberance, they move on to Tuscany to start a new life, and a new book.

I very much enjoyed this story of accidental romance, but by far the biggest benefit of owning this book has been the recipes in the back: we have cooked most of them and added each new dish to our list of favorites.

In a similar vein as "Under the Tuscan Sun" but briefer and a bit darker.

Does make you want to fly to someplace exotic to meet your own "stranger".

Details, the essence of domesticity, shine in this story. There are the travelogue-esque descriptions of Venice: Napoleon's observation about Piazza San Marco and viewing works of art sequestered in ancient churches. There's a discussion of making house, once in the Midwest in a little house I would love to see and again in the grotty chaos of a bachelor's digs. And throughout are delicious descriptions of food and drink and the ways and places to enjoy them.

Like youth, this book may be somewhat wasted on the young. The small ruminations, the reflections on how we find a place and make a place in life may seem over-wrought. Until the onset of my own middle-age, I felt the same way about such memoirs. Now, I greet writings like this with a mixture of recognition and enthusiasm: recognition of the silly ways we fumble along and enthusiasm for another's discovery that it is not too late to savour what is delicious about life. In that, I find a parable of encouragement.

everyone else seems to love this book - the star I awarded it was only in recognition of the wonderful city of venice in which it is set and the not frequent enough references to food and recipes contained therein. for the rest of it - I could have screamed. I think I might have.

Ms de Blasi has a very ponderous writing style - when I finally hit her expression in which I paraphrase she savoured time like an apronful of warm figs, I hit my limit. Every step she takes is weighty, every mouthful she eats has depth and every observation she makes she imparts as if burdened with wisdom.

and a healthy dose of self-esteem - we are assured she transferred a grotty venetian apartment into a haven of domesticity and style with a deft hand and some old scarves. After taking such a bold move in moving countries, she then seems to decide enough decisions have been made and leaves every other turn and ramble their life takes to The Stranger, who appears kinda weak-willed and slack jawed and rather irritating after a while.

for venice and an appreciation of food and the role it plays in life, only just enough to get me through the self-satisfied prosey prose.

This book captured me from the start. By the end of the first chapter, I was in tears, reading it to my mother, explaining about this amazing true story of true love. Captivating writing by a woman who finds love in a stranger, trusts the fates and jumps head first into romance, and a new life in Italy. Take me to Venice so that I can absorb all the romance this sinking city eminates. I cannot wait for the continuing story of Marlena and the stranger.

This is a light, but thought-provoking book about not giving up on love, taking chances, and compromising without resentment. It is a delightful read, made even more pleasing because it is autobiographical. Would that more of us had this kind of courage and trust in ourselves and those we fall in love with.

Gourmet food writer, gourmand extraordinaire and makeshift interior decorator, Marlena De Blasi, throws caution to the wind when she leaves her home base in America to marry a man she barely knows from Venice. Is she crazy or merely sensationally romantic?

If I were to analyze la bella dona, Marlena, by her writing alone, I would submit that indeed she is a romantic---each of the moments she describes on the island of Lido and Venice proper, wax with almost too much poetry. In spite of this tendency for long windedness, Marlena infuses her little book with such infectious optimism for the future that the reader automatically forgives her indulgences.

After all, it is she, not us, taking the big chance, exchanging her old life for something completely foreign. And she does this, not as a young ingenue in her 20s or early 30s but as a mature woman with grown children. Each of her decisions and contemplations is most intricately explored; questions that arise in any mature mind are handled with an infinite and loving look at a future that isn't as long as it seemed when one was much younger. Brava, Marlena, for giving the spark of love a chance to grow into a flame and to express your anxieties with such honesty.
The first part of Marlena's story ignites that flame within the reader's heart; the details of the mystery Venetian steadfastly wooing the woman of his dreams based on just a glimpse of her profile emulates the great romances. The author's technique of flashing back to her first visit to Venice does not make its thematic point as quickly as one would wish, and so seems to muddy the pace of the actual tale of courtship and marriage. However, this, too does not mar the overall tapestry that De Blasi ultimately crafts.

In the second half of the book. De Blasi deals with her assimilation into the Italian mindset--a transition she makes totally possible through her use of interior design and her love of good food--wonderful recipes of some of the key meals mentioned in the text are thoughtfully provided at the end of the book. The couples' decision to chuck their newly converted Lido apartment for a life of helping others create their own dream environment in Tuscany and Umbria seems perfectly in tune with the book's emphasis on shunning the routine and keeping life a continuum of surprise. I hope that Marlena will follow this book up with a tale of her new adventures as the couple molts into their new lifestyle.

Recommended to all those who love romance and the thought of living in a foreign land.

I will give credit to Marlena DeBlasi for writing a rather enchanting tale of midlife rejuvenation. She leaves the unhappy "old" new world, and finds romance, love and joy in the "new" old world. Ms. DeBlasi tells her story with considerable pananche: Marlena, the smells, sights and oddities of the city are very much alive. Fernando less so.

My concern is that Ms.DeBlasi seems not to understand that ones history cannot be abandoned. Thomas Mann, in another story about Venice, brilliantly describes the death of a respected writer who rejects his past in exchange for Venetian Eros. Pirandello also comes to mind. In his plays, his characters alter the reality of the past; "reality" is dissociated from "what was", and "what is" becomes what the characters want to behold. In both "Death in Venice" and "Henry IV" outcomes are not good. "A Thousand Days in Venice" hopefully will be the first volume of a trilogy. The second will be an honest appraisal and coming to terms with the past, and the third a remarkable synthesis.

I am taking this little book seriously. Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but I think it represents more than a sassy middle age romance, or a nice story like "Under the Tuscan Sun". Ms. DeBlasi has begun to think about her past, although I do not believe that she has fully come to terms with it. Her "rebirth" is also significant. I am not sure whether it is an escape, and as with the Pirandello characters, a reality based on the perceptions one wants to have, or is it the "real thing". Only Ms.DeBlasi knows that.