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Girl By Sea: Life, love and food on an Italian island
The conclusion to Penelope Green's bestselling trilogy about her life in Italy that includes When in Rome and See Naples and Die
From her rooftop terrace, Penelope looks out across the sparkling waters of the Bay of Naples, and into a garden of lemon trees and magnolias. Has her Italian dream come true?
Imagine catching a ferry home and stepping onto a waterfront lined with multicoloured buildings, busy with fishing boats and couples strolling to their favourite café.
For Penny and her Italian love Alfonso, the idyllic island of Procida can offer the life they are looking for. But first Penny has to find a way into its small community. One thing she has in common with the locals is a love of food, so she sets herself a goal - to master the Procidan cuisine and become more than just a visitor.
Across kitchen tables, in bustling cafés, and over long lunches under vine-covered pergolas, Penny learns the art of Italian cooking, builds friendships, and discovers the rhythms and secrets of island life.
'It’s a lovely chronicle of the joys and pitfalls of moving to a small community... A charming concoction of love, food and life – with recipes!' - The Australian Women’s Weekly
'With her observant eye for detail, young Sydney-born journalist Penelope Green's account of her time living on the beautiful Italian island of Procida with her partner, Alfonso, is an endearing insight into a small community where life, love and food reign supreme' - Sunday Telegraph
'interspersed with mouthwatering recipes and Procida is explored from a historical, cultural, architectural, social and heart-on-the-sleeve personal perspective. Delivered with a light and breezy tone, it's easy to consume' - Courier Mail
Author Biography
Penelope Green was born in Sydney and worked as a print journalist around Australia for a decade before moving to Rome in 2002. Her first book, When in Rome , recounts her early experiences in the Eternal City. In 2005 she moved to Naples to work for ANSAmed, a Mediterranean news service. She found an apartment in the city's colourful Spanish Quarter, worked hard at mastering the Neapolitan dialect, and writing her second travel memoir, See Naples and Die . Girl by Sea completes Penny's Italian experience as she moves to the idyllic island of Procida, across the bay from Capri, with her Italian partner, Alfonso. The couple have now returned to Australia, where they are making a new life for themselves back in the Southern hemisphere. For more information visit penelopegreen.com.au
From her rooftop terrace, Penelope looks out across the sparkling waters of the Bay of Naples, and into a garden of lemon trees and magnolias. Has her Italian dream come true?
Imagine catching a ferry home and stepping onto a waterfront lined with multicoloured buildings, busy with fishing boats and couples strolling to their favourite café.
For Penny and her Italian love Alfonso, the idyllic island of Procida can offer the life they are looking for. But first Penny has to find a way into its small community. One thing she has in common with the locals is a love of food, so she sets herself a goal - to master the Procidan cuisine and become more than just a visitor.
Across kitchen tables, in bustling cafés, and over long lunches under vine-covered pergolas, Penny learns the art of Italian cooking, builds friendships, and discovers the rhythms and secrets of island life.
'It’s a lovely chronicle of the joys and pitfalls of moving to a small community... A charming concoction of love, food and life – with recipes!' - The Australian Women’s Weekly
'With her observant eye for detail, young Sydney-born journalist Penelope Green's account of her time living on the beautiful Italian island of Procida with her partner, Alfonso, is an endearing insight into a small community where life, love and food reign supreme' - Sunday Telegraph
'interspersed with mouthwatering recipes and Procida is explored from a historical, cultural, architectural, social and heart-on-the-sleeve personal perspective. Delivered with a light and breezy tone, it's easy to consume' - Courier Mail
Author Biography
Penelope Green was born in Sydney and worked as a print journalist around Australia for a decade before moving to Rome in 2002. Her first book, When in Rome , recounts her early experiences in the Eternal City. In 2005 she moved to Naples to work for ANSAmed, a Mediterranean news service. She found an apartment in the city's colourful Spanish Quarter, worked hard at mastering the Neapolitan dialect, and writing her second travel memoir, See Naples and Die . Girl by Sea completes Penny's Italian experience as she moves to the idyllic island of Procida, across the bay from Capri, with her Italian partner, Alfonso. The couple have now returned to Australia, where they are making a new life for themselves back in the Southern hemisphere. For more information visit penelopegreen.com.au
- GenresNonfictionTravelItaly
305 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
7 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 15, 2019
Loved this book. Just wanted to be there with her. ♥️
June 15, 2016
I have read all 3 books now in the Penelope Green series of her travels and new life in Italy but I have to say that Girl By Sea is my favourite. I don’t know if it is the snap shots throughout so you can actually visualise what you are reading, the recipes for the cooking lessons she has or the fact that it sounds like a beautiful little place in the world to live.
If you haven’t read these books, start at the beginning with When in Rome so that you understand how far Penny has come through the 3 books. Warning: Every time I read them, it gives me itchy travel feet.
If you haven’t read these books, start at the beginning with When in Rome so that you understand how far Penny has come through the 3 books. Warning: Every time I read them, it gives me itchy travel feet.
February 23, 2017
I have read this book before and bought this copy at the second hand shop. I like the way it has recipes in it that relate directly to the story.
You really do become party of Procida - the people of the island become familiar as they reappear over the book.
I was good enough to make me put Procida on my to-do list!
You really do become party of Procida - the people of the island become familiar as they reappear over the book.
I was good enough to make me put Procida on my to-do list!
September 7, 2018
Thoroughly enjoyed all three of Penelope Green's books about living in Italy ...
December 30, 2019
A light but engaging read.
April 17, 2024
In this, Green's third book of the 'When In Rome' trilogy, Green and her boyfriend, Alfonso (whom she met in Naples, detailed in her second book) move to an island off the coast of Naples: Procida.
Green, who becomes unemployed not long after her arrival on the small island, uses the time she has to explore the island and research its history and people through her conversations and/or friendships with the locals. (Although, being a very tight community, she sometimes struggles to fit in.) She also learns how to cook; befriending an older couple whom she visits often for both cooking tips and conversation.
I guess Girl By Sea is not so much a biography than it is a travel guide of sorts. In fact, I found Green's See Naples and Die written in the same vein: an exploration of Green's surroundings and her written conclusions of what each place means to her and to the people with which she shares her new home.
I'll be honest. I was 100 pages in before I really started to get in to this book. I don't think that's a reflection on Green's writing, so much that the book wasn't the right choice for me. (In fact, it was her first book, When In Rome, that resonated with me the most - being a more personal account of her life, together with her experiences of living in a foreign city.)
One thing I love about this book though, is the inclusion of yummy local Procidan recipes at the end of each chapter.
Green, who becomes unemployed not long after her arrival on the small island, uses the time she has to explore the island and research its history and people through her conversations and/or friendships with the locals. (Although, being a very tight community, she sometimes struggles to fit in.) She also learns how to cook; befriending an older couple whom she visits often for both cooking tips and conversation.
I guess Girl By Sea is not so much a biography than it is a travel guide of sorts. In fact, I found Green's See Naples and Die written in the same vein: an exploration of Green's surroundings and her written conclusions of what each place means to her and to the people with which she shares her new home.
I'll be honest. I was 100 pages in before I really started to get in to this book. I don't think that's a reflection on Green's writing, so much that the book wasn't the right choice for me. (In fact, it was her first book, When In Rome, that resonated with me the most - being a more personal account of her life, together with her experiences of living in a foreign city.)
One thing I love about this book though, is the inclusion of yummy local Procidan recipes at the end of each chapter.
January 21, 2022
Light enjoyable read especially by the beach in summer
March 27, 2023
An enjoyable read, but a little slow in parts. It was nice to get an inside look into living on an Italian island. The recipe at the end of each chapter was a nice touch.
Want to read
August 9, 2020the book lacks substance is insignificant
May 22, 2016
Well, obviously from my star rating, I didn't love it.
The previous book by this author I had quite enjoyed as she had deftly brought to life the city (Naples) it was about. This book, I felt failed to bring to life Procida, the Island on which she is living which is a shame since it sounds like a pretty cool place. Unfortunately whenever the writing starts to bring Procida to life the narrative skips to something else though NEVER to the place the title promises: In 'Girl by Sea' at no point do we get any insight or barely even a sight of the 'sea' after which it is named and that really annoyed me, since that was exactly what I was interested in reading about. Penelope mentions once or twice going for a swim, that a ferry ride is needed to get to the mainland (and once there was a storm), going fishing once (she hated it) and that is about all the 'Sea' we get. Except a lot of sea animals get eaten. I don't eat sea food, I especially do not eat Cephalopods, so I was unimpressed by this part.
Apparently learning to cook was meant to be a theme, but it didn't come through strongly in the writing. There are some recipes, (a few quite interesting looking) and at the end a throwaway statement shows that Penelope can actually now cook herself lunch, as long as her boyfriend is not there to do it, but there is no 'learning to cook' narrative.
Actually, I have to say, there is really NO continual narrative. Penelope's talent for describing people (as I saw it in previous books) is muted and diffuse in this story. I suspect it is because the people in it are important to her; her relationship with Alfonso is treated cautiously and usually quite kindly, her acquaintances on the island are written with respect for their reserved natures. As a friend being written about, I would doubtless appreciate Penelope's restraint in writing me like this, as a reader I was bored.
Three quarters into the book, I realised what the nagging sense of familiarity I had been feeling for some time was: This book was reading like an online blog and not in a really positive way. "Today I went swimming. Today I walked to the lighthouse. Today my mother in law came for a visit, I was nervous." In a blog, you share this tiny snippets of information, you get 'like's and comments from your friends, the writing does not have to be brilliant, though sometimes it may be. You do not need the continuous narrative that a book does need and in this case does not have. A blog you follow because you want to know what is happening in the persons life, but I paid for this book and I wanted a professionally told story which is not really there.
A story starts to come through at times, but frustratingly is abandoned or becomes aimless and meandering each time as the author fails to follow themes through. The theme of lemons would have been good, but is dropped. She starts to teach English, then we never hear anymore about it until a throwaway line chapters latter. We meet people, but they are never expanded upon after meeting them, they are just there and the lack of character development meant that I often had no idea who the people I was reading about were. I suspect that the lost and aimless feeling reflects Penelope's personal experience on the island very accurately and I am sorry for her, but, again, this is not a blog.
The end shapes up a little better, with the final chapters much more lively and well written, I wonder if that was because Penelope herself was happier as the end of her isolation and return home came into sight. The writing was also considerably more vibrant and dynamic when she was interviewing an English speaker so possibly translation was a part of the flatness in the dialogue throughout. Maybe.
Again, severely disappointed by expectations raised by the title: The Mediterranean is an amazing Sea, surely it deserved a bit more of a look in. If you like Italy, food writing, or travel stories do not let my one star put you off, It would have rated at least two stars, maybe three, if I had not been so bitterly disappointed at the complete absence of 'Sea' in a book called 'Girl by sea'.
The previous book by this author I had quite enjoyed as she had deftly brought to life the city (Naples) it was about. This book, I felt failed to bring to life Procida, the Island on which she is living which is a shame since it sounds like a pretty cool place. Unfortunately whenever the writing starts to bring Procida to life the narrative skips to something else though NEVER to the place the title promises: In 'Girl by Sea' at no point do we get any insight or barely even a sight of the 'sea' after which it is named and that really annoyed me, since that was exactly what I was interested in reading about. Penelope mentions once or twice going for a swim, that a ferry ride is needed to get to the mainland (and once there was a storm), going fishing once (she hated it) and that is about all the 'Sea' we get. Except a lot of sea animals get eaten. I don't eat sea food, I especially do not eat Cephalopods, so I was unimpressed by this part.
Apparently learning to cook was meant to be a theme, but it didn't come through strongly in the writing. There are some recipes, (a few quite interesting looking) and at the end a throwaway statement shows that Penelope can actually now cook herself lunch, as long as her boyfriend is not there to do it, but there is no 'learning to cook' narrative.
Actually, I have to say, there is really NO continual narrative. Penelope's talent for describing people (as I saw it in previous books) is muted and diffuse in this story. I suspect it is because the people in it are important to her; her relationship with Alfonso is treated cautiously and usually quite kindly, her acquaintances on the island are written with respect for their reserved natures. As a friend being written about, I would doubtless appreciate Penelope's restraint in writing me like this, as a reader I was bored.
Three quarters into the book, I realised what the nagging sense of familiarity I had been feeling for some time was: This book was reading like an online blog and not in a really positive way. "Today I went swimming. Today I walked to the lighthouse. Today my mother in law came for a visit, I was nervous." In a blog, you share this tiny snippets of information, you get 'like's and comments from your friends, the writing does not have to be brilliant, though sometimes it may be. You do not need the continuous narrative that a book does need and in this case does not have. A blog you follow because you want to know what is happening in the persons life, but I paid for this book and I wanted a professionally told story which is not really there.
A story starts to come through at times, but frustratingly is abandoned or becomes aimless and meandering each time as the author fails to follow themes through. The theme of lemons would have been good, but is dropped. She starts to teach English, then we never hear anymore about it until a throwaway line chapters latter. We meet people, but they are never expanded upon after meeting them, they are just there and the lack of character development meant that I often had no idea who the people I was reading about were. I suspect that the lost and aimless feeling reflects Penelope's personal experience on the island very accurately and I am sorry for her, but, again, this is not a blog.
The end shapes up a little better, with the final chapters much more lively and well written, I wonder if that was because Penelope herself was happier as the end of her isolation and return home came into sight. The writing was also considerably more vibrant and dynamic when she was interviewing an English speaker so possibly translation was a part of the flatness in the dialogue throughout. Maybe.
Again, severely disappointed by expectations raised by the title: The Mediterranean is an amazing Sea, surely it deserved a bit more of a look in. If you like Italy, food writing, or travel stories do not let my one star put you off, It would have rated at least two stars, maybe three, if I had not been so bitterly disappointed at the complete absence of 'Sea' in a book called 'Girl by sea'.
July 19, 2010
Someone else reviewed this book saying that the author goes to an Italian island, learns to cook, and not much else happens. This is true, but there is also enough of interest in the stories of the island to keep the reader satisfied. To keep me satisfied anyway! I really enjoy Penelope Green's Italian books, I hope this is not the last thing she publishes although I know she has now moved back to Australia.
September 30, 2013
As the previous two books, I've enjoyed reading the trials, adventures & about the culture experience by the author. Throughout this chapter I couldn't 'to help but get hungry & crave pasta, seafood & good healthy eating. I plan to try some of the recipes included.
May 20, 2010
still dreaming of italy...
July 27, 2011
Sounds like a great place to live. Beautifully written. Can't wait to make Torta Caprese.
Read
February 27, 2016I really should have read the other ones first, but oh well! A light read, some yummy sounding recipes.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews