I'll let this week's magazine pile provide a quote de jour. After an intense week with no relief in sight, all I want to do is chill out with a cocktail; my toes in the sand and my head in a book. The most innovative cover award goes to Nat Geo for boldly leaving edges of the border hanging.


I have read less than usual this week. Only a machine could have kept up my normal pace. A publicist sent me a pretty chick-lit looking covered book but the nonfiction The Case For Falling In Love by Mari Ruti is whip smart and insightful. She's a research professor at the University of Toronto and holds degrees from Harvard, Hrown and the University of Paris. She could have slapped Dr. on the cover like Dr. Phil et al. but she's not that type.  For anyone setting their sights on finding love this summer, will be better equipped after reading this. MariRuti.com


The reason Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent intrigued me because it's held on to the #1 spot on the NY Times best seller list for nonfiction for fifteen weeks. More intriguing is the track record of creating huge best sellers by ghost writer extraordinaire Lynn Vincent. A four-year-old boy whose father is a pastor describes heaven and meeting Jesus after an appendectomy. I watched a recent video with Colton, the boy and Todd, his dad and my intuitive bullshit detector went haywire. My first clue something smelled fishy while reading breezy page turner was the large hospital bill the family couldn't afford. You could practically see a light bulb go off. We could make money from this cute story. The description of Jesus and heaven might have been very different had the child been Jewish, Muslim or Hindu. The thing that galls me the most is a Sunday School description of a sparkling blue-eyed Caucasian Jesus. Jesus came from the Middle-East where a swarthy browned-eyed savior would be more plausible.

I do believe the boy experienced an out-of-body-experience and perhaps a dream, colored by his dad's teachings, but in light of the recent fakery surrounding the best seller Three Cups of Tea, I have one word for this book: fake. A million copies in print! There truly is a sucker born ever minute, don't be one of them.