The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest

by Dan Buettner
National Geographic (2008)

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve enjoyed reading health books more and more.
The Blue Zones is one that’s a little different than the typical “how to”
suggestion books.  This one is much more fun.

Remarkable groups of people manage to achieve longevity, naturally, enjoying longer life spans while remaining active and vital well into their 80s, 90s and 100s.  These people can be found in the world’s “blue zones.”  Blue zones are extraordinarily long-lived communities where common elements of lifestyle, diet and outlook add to the quantity and quality of life.

Concentrating on the 4 blue zones of Sardinia, Okinawa, Loma Linda, California and Costa Rica.  Buettner goes to lengths to bring out the commonness and humanness of those he interviews.  He seems to capture the realness of everyday lives and offers insights into why these folks live longer and stay healthy.

Blue Zone is very pleasant reading, laid out well with photos and key fact boxes.  I like most of his examples of individuals, and I appreciated their excitement about life while getting older.

Your personal blue zone ends this story with lessons the author learned from his studies with practically  presented insights.  The book concludes with the message that the choice is ours whether or not to incorporate these proven lifestyles into our own lives.

Ok Folks, Here are some more books that I think that you will enjoy on your summer vacations or if on a “staycation” these books will transport you to another time and place!!

Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline P. Murphy
“Like the Kennedys or Windsors, the Medicis are a dynasty brimming with biographical
gold, and this supple, smart account of a lesser-known daughter will engage modern
readers as it vivifies both Renaissance Florence and an extraordianary women who paid
ultimate price for flouting her era’s traditional gender roles.” –Publisher’s Weekly

The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz
” A unique literary adventure, intimate, exotic; wonderfully imagined and achieved.
The narrative impels the reader from first to last, immersing us in its flow of ancient
acceptances and new demands. Splendid.”–Shirley Hazard, author of The Transit
of Venus and The Great Fire

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi
“Douglas Preston fulfilled a lifelong dream when he moved with his family to a villa in
Florence. Upon meeting celebrated journalist Mario Spezi, Preston was stunned to
learn that the olive grove next to his home had been the scene of a horrific double
murder committed by one of the most infamous figures in Italian history. A serial
killer who ritually murdered fourteen young lovers, he has never been caught. He is
known as the Monster of Florence.”
FYI: Thomas Harris based his character Hannibal Lector on
The Monster of Florence and the surrounding circumstances.

The Dummy Line by Bobby Cole
“Jake Crosby, a troubled stockbroker, has planned a weekend escape at his hunting
camp with his nine-year-old daughter, Katy. In the middle of the night, a gang of
redneck drug dealers attempts to break into the remote camp. The gang’s display of
heinous intentions toward Jake and Katy causes Jake to make gut-wrenching
decisions.”

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
“The House of Riverton is a sweeping debut novel set in England between the
wars. It is the story of an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death and a
vanishing way of life, told by a woman who witnessed it all and kept a secret for a
lifetime.”

Master of the Delta by Thomas Cook
“Cook writes powerful layered novels, with original heroes who choose to walk down
paths that quietly, inexorably, lead them to even darker places in the human heart,
and ultimately to breathtaking and revelatory surprises at their journey’s end.”
–Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Red Leather Diary–Lily Koppel
Lilly Koppel ‘rescued’ a red leather diary from the garbage dumpster in front of her
apartment building in New York. She took it home and after reading it realized she
must find this girl who wrote it. She hired an investigator and the rest is history!
“The young woman who emerged from the diary’s pages had huge ambitions, even if
chasing them proved daunting. February 21, 1931. Went to the Museum of
Modern Art and almost passed out from sheer jealousy-I can’t even paint an
apple yet-it’s heartbreaking! January 16, 1932. I couldn’t study today & went to
museum to pass a morning of agonizing beauty-Blown glass, jade and exquisite
embroideries. April 10, 1932. Wrote all day-and my story is still incomplete.
September 2, 1934. Planning a play on Wordsworth-possibilities are infinite.
October 12, 1934. How I love to inflict pain on my characters!
What she craved most was to be enveloped in a grand passion that would
transform her life. July 3, 1932. Five hours of tennis and glorious happiness-all I
want is someone to love-I feel incomplete.”

The narrator of this book is Enzo, an old lab mix (as in labrador retriever), who has a very fine tale to tell with a very wise, old soul-like point of view. Enzo lives with a young family whose pack leader is Denny, a race car driver, and his wife Eve and their daughter Zoe. At first glance, this is a perfect family if such an animal exists. All is not the American flag and apple pie, though. Into every life comes the inevitable–death, breach of trust, disease and ruthless in laws as well those things that see us through those tortuous times like wonder and passion and redemption. Enzo is happy being a dog and telling his tale but he’s learned a few tricks and a few truths for an old dog. For instance, Enzo fantasizes that one day he will be reborn with opposable thumbs, as a human being. Fear of death is not a phobia with him with such an afterlife or afterdog probability. In the meantime, Enzo enjoys the sitstay passenger seat in any racing car with his pal Denny. When Enzo gets left behind, he discovers the joys of the weather station on television and learns everything there is to know about the earth and its various moods. You might call this penchant a magnificient obsession. Then things really start to happen. People aren’t as happy and the American dream disintegrates. Enzo suffers as do all the other protagonists in the book when the best of times becomes the worst of times. But with suffering comes endurance and with endurance, hope, and so on. I don’t want to spoil this magical book for you by summarizing the plot. This is a big hearted book with a morality tale. It was chosen by the Independent Booksellers as the Number 1 read of the summer and beyond. I give it all my opposable thumbs up. -Pat

Our friend Ron Rash has a new novel coming out in October — so that gives you 3 months to pick up his last book, Chemistry and Other Stories. Ron has full mastery of the short story format in this great little paperback, and the brevity of each story lends greater weight to each word and phrase. There’s 13 stories, so it’ll last you a week if you read one or two every day. Pick one up on your next trip into the store (or add one to your next web order).

I passed by this book several times before I finally picked it up and started reading through it. The market is saturated with personal memoirs and political critiques of the Bush Administration’s handling of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and unfortunately a lot of those books aren’t terribly unique, well-written, or interesting. I don’t think John Agresto’s Mugged by Reality is going to be THE book about Iraq, but I think it’s well ahead of the field and deserves to be read.

Agresto has several points about Iraq, but the central theme that resonated with me was the assertion that, contrary to popular opinion, our failure was not that we did not carefully consider the cultural and religious differences of the Iraqi people — our failure is that we focused too much on those issues, and didn’t recognize the basic human reality of the situation. In an effort to respect their “Iraqi-ness”, we lost sight of their basic humanity and the needs of a people suffering under a tyrant. As time passes and we gain perspective on the war, I can’t help but think that this may well prove to be one of the biggest failures of the war effort.