Views from a Tuscan Vineyard

This gentle volume is aptly self-described as ""a jigsaw of the past, the present, coincidence and luck.'' Although it explores Tuscany, the work is not a travel guide in the conventional sense. The father-daughter collaborators of Views from a French Farmhouse here record sights, impressions and thoughts evoked from their journeys through the region. Working metaphorically through the stages of wine productionplanting, flowering, ripening, harvesting and tastingthe Mores weave together material on the area's history, sculpture, architecture, literature, landscapes and people. Throughout they attempt to keep these diverse elements in a delicate balance, as when they set studied photos of the city of Siena against a humorously ironic story about leaping out of a narrow street to avoid being crushed by a truck while reading the welcoming sign: ``Siena opens wide its heart to you.'' (October)