L is for The Land Where Lemons Grow
The Land Where Lemons Grow
Helena Attlee
Particular books (Penguin) 03/04/14 Hardback
6/10
Stanfords Bookshop (Covent Garden)
This heady mix of travel writing, history, biology and social anthropology was a joy to read. The Citruses of Italy are the main characters of this book, but also the people who look after them. The elderly man who maintained a limonaria or lemon house in the northern mountains every winter by carefully regulating the temperature with fires to drive away the frost. The stubborn and yet still fragile characters of Italian lemons have a tumultuous history in the early days of the mafia. The importance, the rise and decline, and the reflection of the Italian people through their interaction with the fruit is all wrapped up in this sensuous book. A summer/holiday read preferably somewhere where the possibility of procuring a lemon sorbet is at your fingertips.
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