ONE DOWN, 49 MORE TO GO

PLAYING FOR PIZZA by John Grisham

Despite the fact that I don't have the first clue about football, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There were a lot of football descriptions involved in this read ... details on plays ... a lot of them, have I mentioned this? And Grisham assumes the reader knows what blitzes and Hail Mary's are, which I don't. Even still, I managed to enjoy the book. I even got all "caught up in the moment" when Mr. Grisham wrote, with intensity, the exciting ending to the Italian Super Bowl. I couldn't put the book down at that part!

Yes, my enjoyment might also have had something to do with the fact that Grisham went into great detail about the Italian food in Parma, a northern city in Italy. Okay, yes, there might have been the slightest bit of eroticism that played out in his food descriptions, but I'm telling you! I now want to go and eat my way up one side of Italy and down the other, more than ever, after having read this book.

I think the real reason I enjoyed this book was that I didn't need to think about it. It wasn't necessarily Beach Read Fluff, well, okay, maybe for a guy, but it was fluff with substance, if that makes any sense. It was a story about underdogs, and who doesn't like to see underdogs win? It was a story about finding one's self, and in a sense, it was a story about finding contentment in the last place you would ever think to find it.

I recommend PLAYING FOR PIZZA by John Grisham.