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A Book Sense Pick for May 2005, this is the humorous tale of how the author moved— against his will and his better judgment—to Italy with his wife, only to rediscover himself, his marriage, and the importance of getting in touch with his inner Italian.After years of working on a string of sitcoms, Phil Doran found himself on the outside looking in. Just as he and his peers had replaced the older guys when he was coming up the ranks, it was now happening to him. And it was freaking him out. He came home every night angry, burned- out, and exhausted. After twenty-five years of losing her husband to Hollywood, Doran's wife decided it was finally time for a change—so on one of her many solo trips to Italy she surprised her husband by purchasing a broken-down 300-year-old farmhouse for them to restore. The Reluctant Tuscan is about the author's transition from being a successful but overworked writer-producer in Hollywood to rediscovering himself and his wife while...
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Phil Doran may not have been the first person to move to Tuscany and decide to write about his move, but he would probably win the vote for most reluctant. For many years, Doran's wife worked in Tuscany while Doran wrote sitcoms in Hollywood. Finally, after some dismal setbacks in tv land, Doran's wife encouraged Doran to join her in Tuscany. Doran looks at quirky Tuscany and its quirky citizens with the eye of a hurry-up, get-rich-quick, kill-or-be-killed American and grows to love its eccentricities.