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Playing for Pizza

Sunday, January 6th, 2008 Will Leave a comment Go to comments

My first book of the New Year is Playing for Pizza, which is a short novel by John Grisham. This is his third short novel and the second one in a row that is football-related. I like these short novels because they are SHORT and they are a break from his legal thrillers. PfP is about a third-string NFL quarterback who blows a big playoff game and afterwards nobody in the NFL wants him. He ends up playing for the Parma Panthers in the Italian version of the NFL. Most of the Italian players don’t get salaries, but instead get pizza and beer after the games. I guess I’m just not as big of a football fan as I used to be, so I don’t think I enjoyed this as much as I would have 3 or 4 years ago. The football/team bonding scenes were okay…nothing mindblowing. The love story part of the book was a little boring and I glossed over some of it. Grisham spends a lot of time ~~making me hungry~~ talking about wine and food and it’s obvious that he has spent some time in Italy (he confirms it in the back of the book). Yes, there is a real Parma Panthers team. Did you know that Parmesan cheese gets its name from that place? Since I’m a Grisham fan, I’m glad that I read it, but it’s not my favorite Grisham book.