Judge This Book By Its Cover

 

I'm an Abel James fan, and his newest book is part cookbook, part nutrition and fitness advice and mostly just good reminders to look to nature for your food. I am not a collector of print cookbooks any longer, and the few that I do keep around are mainly exquisite picture books, so I am making a bit of an exception for this volume. It does have a few excellent photographs and the meal prep ideas are quite good; Abel and his wife/cohort have kept the layout simple and it's pretty easy to find some new inspiration here.

Everyone who has even the slightest interest in a healthier lifestyle is on the lookout for menus to replace the ones that got us into our current situation. This cheery book will help you add to your repertoire of new food. By wild, he simply means 'real.' It's not a cookbook about eating squirrels or insects, in case you were worried.

I also highly recommend his podcast: Fat Burning Man. He has a terrific on air personality and a really intelligent show. And the best voice anywhere!

Stuart Woods: Stone Barrington, Holly Barker, Will Lee, etc

Stuart Woods is frivolous, totally frivolous. If you take yourself at all seriously, you will not want to read his work and you will certainly not want to admit it in erudite company. However, if you are looking for light reading, he is just the ticket. He has written several series, but they overlap quite a bit. The most voluminous of these is the Stone Barrington series. 
 

Exotic foods, expensive wines, luxurious travel, and extravagantly tailored clothing are part of the fantasy formula for the Woods stories. Hollywood movie stars and wealthy producers also add to the overall embarrassment of riches. Realism plays no visible part in these books, so if you read for escape, Woods’ books are the perfect exit from reality. The women are all athletic, trim and perpetually in their 30's, while the men range into 50's and 60's. The stunningly gorgeous females fling themselves at the middle-aged and elderly men with abandon - possibly the most fantastical feature of the stories.

Woods’ plots are a blend of Boxcar Children, James Bond and Murder, She Wrote with a little sprinkling of West Wing. These books are television for people who would rather read than watch TV. There are no loud commercials and you can get up for a snack or a drink whenever it suits you. They are technically mystery/detective/crime stories, in the same way that Scooby Doo is a mystery/detective/crime series.  

And just when you think you know people, you discover this!

Woods first book was a masterpiece. This book is in the same league with To Kill a Mockingbird, seriously. This portrayal of old Georgia, written in 1981, is a gem. Chiefs is set in three separate time periods: 1920's, post WWII, and early 1960's. It got enough attention to warrant a TV mini-series in 1982.

Frivolity or good literature, take your pick. 

John Sandford Books

Sandford is a prolific author and I have not yet scratched the surface of his many volumes, but I can safely say that I will be reading all of at least two of his series. He reminds me of Hiaasen, and that is a huge compliment. Like Hiaasen, Sandford creates characters with an irreverent and innovative brilliance. If you also like characters who engage in creative cursing and philosophical meanderings, these flawed protagonists will make you happy.

Sandford's good guys have a strong moral compass that has nothing to do with piety or religion and everything to do with living an examined life. The characters and plots are not as wacky and outrageous as Hiaasen's, but that might be an accurate reflection of the difference between Minnesota and Florida. That is not to suggest that there is anything bland about the Sanford stories. On the contrary, the color in both the language and the circumstances is artful and amazing. Not

since Shakespeare have rogues and miscreants been insulted with such

enthusiastic poetry.

These characters do not take themselves too seriously, and that feature is one of several that makes the stories move along in a sort of freewheeling style. Detective novels can be made tedious by too much swashbuckling. Sandford's story telling gets another boost from the fact that there is little to no "filler" in the books. Every sentence moves the plot along briskly and meaningfully - downright cheerfully, to be perfectly honest. There is definitely an upbeat quality to the cast of characters.

There are Prey novels, Flowers novels, Kidd novels, a series called Singular Menace,  and a couple of non-series books. The Prey series is the longest and contains some fairly grisly content. But all of the books are suspenseful and create some tension. Sandford is a good researcher and the tension is often created by his delving into the minds of the truly nefarious. Everyone has heard the phrase, "couldn't put it down." It is a saying that applies to every one of Sandford's books.