Playing for Pizza ~ John Grisham

Funk Rating: 8 out of 10

This is a pleasant, simple, mouth-watering, redeeming book. It's a quick read, and is basically a "playing for the love of the game" storyline that includes some incredible food, funny stories, a touch of a love story, and one man's quest to find himself.

Set in Italy, the book is about an athlete (football player) who escapes the madness of US pro sports because he's basically washed up. And he finds out what's important in life, and what's important to him. Along the way, Grisham writes about food as well as anyone in Zagat's or Food and Wine Magazine. I swear I want to go to Italy now more than ever because the best food and wine in the world is in Parma. And, of course, the Italian people are wonderfully fun, genuine, friends-and-family people (which is exactly how I remember them from my trips there).

I smiled my way through most of it, and while I'm no football fan, I enjoyed the heck out of the play-by-play re-caps. And the book ends as it should. When you need a light-hearted break, this is a fine one to fly through. No thriller plotlines, no complex science, just a good story.