December Book Club

Lunch today was inspired by last week’s bacon, tomato, goat cheese and arugula sandwich.

I loved it then, I love it now!

Rounded out with a Gala apple (perfectly crisp!) and a stick of colby jack string cheese.

My workout today actually served a dual purpose… Sadie’s exercise for the day and my workout rolled into one. Right before lunch, I took a 35-minute break to take Sadie on a nice jog around our neighborhood.

After a quick shower, this lunch was the perfect post-run reward.

December Book Club

I debated doing a December book club, but after lots of encouragement from you guys via the PBF Facebook page, I couldn’t resist!

I wasn’t sure whether or not everyone would be too busy with the holidays to get some reading in, but sometimes curling up with a good book is a great way to escape some of the holiday madness, right?

Below are three books taken from your recommendations on the PBF Facebook page.

Please vote on the book you would most like to read below.

On Wednesday, January 4, I’ll dedicate an entire post to my review of the book and include discussion questions for everyone to answer in the comments section. It’s an online book club, baby!

• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.

• The Violets of March by Sarah Jio

In her twenties, Emily Wilson was on top of the world: she had a bestselling novel, a husband plucked from the pages of GQ, and a one-way ticket to happily ever after.

Ten years later, the tide has turned on Emily’s good fortune. So when her great-aunt Bee invites her to spend the month of March on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, Emily accepts, longing to be healed by the sea. Researching her next book, Emily discovers a red velvet diary, dated 1943, whose contents reveal startling connections to her own life.

• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

(Note: Since many people pushed for this book to be an option again this month after being overlooked in November, it is!)

Growing up in California in the 1920s, Louie was a hell-raiser, stealing everything edible that he could carry, staging elaborate pranks, getting in fistfights, and bedeviling the local police. But as a teenager, he emerged as one of the greatest runners America had ever seen, competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he put on a sensational performance, crossed paths with Hitler, and stole a German flag right off the Reich Chancellery. He was preparing for the 1940 Olympics, and closing in on the fabled four-minute mile, when World War II began. Louie joined the Army Air Corps, becoming a bombardier. Stationed on Oahu, he survived harrowing combat, including an epic air battle that ended when his plane crash-landed, some six hundred holes in its fuselage and half the crew seriously wounded.

On a May afternoon in 1943, Louie took off on a search mission for a lost plane. Somewhere over the Pacific, the engines on his bomber failed. The plane plummeted into the sea, leaving Louie and two other men stranded on a tiny raft. Drifting for weeks and thousands of miles, they endured starvation and desperate thirst, sharks that leapt aboard the raft, trying to drag them off, a machine-gun attack from a Japanese bomber, and a typhoon with waves some forty feet high. At last, they spotted an island. As they rowed toward it, unbeknownst to them, a Japanese military boat was lurking nearby. Louie’s journey had only just begun.

Please vote for the book you would like to read below.

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