The Stone Boudoir: Travels Through the Hidden Village of Sicily

I bought 5 books for perusal ..3 written by men and 2 by the ladies...Theresa Maggio escorts you into dream adventures you were wont to take ..but she permits you through her imagery to feel as though you accompany her as she dares to discover the little known villages of the Island we know as Sicily..Just allow yourself one chapter an evening , close the book and go off to dream the journey ..you may not ever experience the physical trip, but Theresa carries you over Etna and the mountains..Each night you will look forward to the next chapter and dream journey!! I am delighted to have "discovered" Sicilia through the memories of Ms. Maggio..I recommend this charming and informative book.. I loook forward to finding another such by Theresa!!!!

I'm half Italian, half Sicilian, and I've spent most of my life traveling and learning about mainland Italy. I always wanted to visit Sicily, and this book allowed me to see my Motherland through Maggio's experiences there. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. I felt like I was there with her, and it left me with a better understanding of the island, the people, and the traditions. I was actually reading the book while on vacation to Malta, and my husband, noticing my interest in the book, booked a day trip to Sicily on my 25th birthday!

In The Stone Boudoir, Theresa Maggio has taken the fascination she has for the land of her grandparents and transmuted it into words of pure gold that vividly distill the essence of the Sicily she calls the "island's hidden treasure and the secret spring of Sicilian endurance." The Sicily she goes in search of lies far beneath the radar of most guidebooks. In The Stone Boudoir, you will not find discussed, for example, Taormina, that once-mystical place now ruined by shops. Indeed, with the exception of Catania and, perhaps, Mondello (a suburb of Palermo), Maggio's discoveries are made in small towns, often high up on mountain tops and off the beaten track. Each chapter of the book is a standalone essay - really a short story based on her explorations - and the fact that there is no discernable timeline connecting them all adds to the book's charm and eliminates what might otherwise be tedious and irrelevant backstory. Each story is a gem: the old people recall the night of the earthquake that destroyed the town from which Maggio's grandparents had emigrated; an old woman returns to the long-abandoned home of her childhood and finds a treasure; the author follows the two-day procession of a bejeweled effigy of a saint in Catania. The places in the stories sent me scurrying for my map of Sicily and wishing I were planning a trip there soon. I had one small complaint about this book (hardback version): the endpapers are maps of Sicily colored dark blue with much detail in fine print; consequently, they are completely unreadable. A simpler, readable map showing the locations of the places mentioned in the book would be a welcome addition to any future edition. But this is a small complaint about a book that gave me much pleasure. Brava, Theresa!

THE STONE BOUDOIR is a collection of stories about author Theresa Maggio's experience in the unnoticed mountain towns of Sicily. It's about the people she meets, their customs, stories and the island's rich and fascinating history (involving the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and the Normans).At the start of the 20th century, Maggio's grandparents immigrated to America from Santa Margherita Belice, a small Sicilian mountain town. In 1973, Maggio makes her way to Sicily for her first visit. She finds the island so alluring that she returns for many more visits.Not only does Maggio visit her grandparents' hometown, she goes further to explore other Sicilian towns. The writer describes them as, "Tiny jewels, remote and isolated, these are places tourists seldom see. But they are the island's hidden treasure and the secret spring of Sicilian endurance." After reading THE STONE BOUDOIR, I have to agree - what riches these places and people have to offer, indeed!Maggio's descriptions of these villages are priceless - like her first visit to Polizzi Generosa, a town on the peak of the Madonie Mountain in north-central Sicily or sleeping in a cave home in Sperlinga, an ancient mountain town in Sicily's center. But it is the natives and their stories that make up the most pleasurable part of the book. My top three favorite stories are of Signora Maria, a 71-year-old woman with an amazing childhood who liked to memorize and could still recite folk poems by heart; Enza Dolce who has accomplished many firsts as a single woman in Sicily despite adversity and Nunzio Putrino, an old Sicilian bagpiper who met and wooed his wife over his music-playing without saying a word. There's an excellent chapter on the 1968 earthquake that affected many of the towns. Margherita Cacioppo, who was nine when the earthquake occurred, shares her account. The images of what happened during the earthquake and what her family did to survive are very vivid. There are many more fantastic stories, each one is unique but all contain the similar characteristic trait of a resilient people. There are no photos in the book but you can find a nice collection highlighted on the writer's web site...Some of my favorites are: Maletto Bagpipes, A Sperlinga Cave dweller, Love on a Plate, The Stone Boudoir, Sheep Sleep in Palaces, Locati Wash on Line and many more. The photos are exactly the way I imagined them from Maggio's narrations. But is it definitely nice to see the real thing.Reading THE STONE BOUDOIR is like having a cup of coffee/cappuccino/espresso/ tea (insert your beverage of choice) with a friend as she shares, with you, stories about her visit to a special place. What a wonderful look at Sicily and its people. You won't regret reading this book.Fafa Demasio

I've always been interested in reading about people and how they lived - past tense. This is a book about the people that live there today, in small Sicilian towns, in our modern world. Did I say modern? So little has changed in the towns the writer visited. The Stone Boudoir is not only about a place, but about the people that live there today. I found this book to be funny and beautifully written. I was captivated by the people she met along the way and long for more!