Guess What?  The most recent issue of Living Without Magazine (Dec/Jan) features Atlanta as its travel destination.  Of course, you and I know how many awesome gluten-free options Atlanta has, but the rest of the country might not realize the plethora of restaurants that go above and beyond to help out those of us with special dietary needs.

You can get a teeny glimpse of the article by clicking here but you have to purchase a copy for yourself in order to read the entire article, and see if there are any spots you’re missing.  You can find Living Without on shelves at Whole Foods and other natural food stores.

Friends and Readers, gluten and non-gluten eaters, who don’t reside in Hotlanta, this should give you even more reason to visit ATL.  If the Real Housewives, the music industry and Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full, weren’t enough to get you down here, all of these yummy food spots, should finally twist your arm.  The only trouble will be to decide where to go once you get here.

Oh, and one more thing…I wrote the article.  Yep, I’m pretty pleased as punch about it.

Yup, that's me, a 'Contributor.'

I’m back in Atlanta after a wonderful week on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with my parents.  Sure, it was no Rhinebeck, New York, but I’ll take Finney Creek any day over the wedding of the century.  The Shore is one of my favorite places, as it’s one of the spots where I feel most relaxed.  No sight seeing, very little social activity, just hanging out.  Fortunately, we had a spell of cooler weather so reading on the dock didn’t involve heat stroke.

Most of our time on the shore consisted of boat rides, naps, reading, eating and watching Pardon the Interruption.  During the fall, winter and spring we also watch a lot of football and basketball, but we have trouble getting excited about baseball, so there wasn’t nearly as much ESPN.  While I missed having sports to watch, I found that I had much more time to read without the NCAA tournament or bowl season to distract me.

I read three great books while on the Shore and I would highly recommend all three.  Each was very different but I devoured them.  Nothing could stand in my way of finishing them.

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: Charles J. Shields

Having reread To Kill a Mockingbird this year with my 8^th graders, I loved learning more about the life of Harper Lee, especially her friendship with Truman Capote.  Lee was his research assistant for In Cold Blood, another story that fascinates me.  A large chunk of the book is about their time in Kansas researching the murder and getting to know the people involved in the case.  As a wanna-be writer myself, it was also refreshing to learn that words didn’t always flow easily for Ms. Lee.  She struggled with her first book (TKAM was initially a group of short stories that her publisher made her tie together) and she never even published a second book, despite tirelessly working on one.  Affirming to know that I don’t suffer from writer’s block alone.

Little Bee: Chris Cleave

‘Absolutely riveting’ is the only way I can describe this book.  On the back cover of Little Bee it actually says, “We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book.  It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it.”  That’s how I feel about it.  A powerful, creative story, with great characters, I can’t do it justice by summarizing.  It’s beautifully written but I found myself reading it too fast to even appreciate the writing style because I was so eager to find out what happens and how everyone is connected.

The Piano Teacher: Janice Y.K. Lee

This story takes place in Hong Kong, during and after World War II.  A history teacher, I love books about a small moment in history in an unusual place.  I had never really thought much about what Hong Kong was like during World War II, but the story is captivating.  The combination of a large European population from colonialism, the Japanese takeover, and the Chinese made for an interesting social tension at the time.

Now I’m reading Hellhound on His Trail, (Hampton Sides) a book David recommended, about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the search for his assassin.  The history nerd in me loves this stuff.  Written with a journalistic style, the author tells a great story about the man that killed King, our nation’s political state at the time, and the workings of the FBI.  I’m really enjoying it, but it will take me ten times longer to finish it than if I were still reading on the dock.

Do you have any reading recommendations?  We’ll be in Connecticut with David’s family in September so I’ll be looking for some good reads on the trip.