Hi friends, you're listening to the Lazy Genius podcast. I'm Kendra and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.

You're listening to episode 73. The lazy genius chooses a cookbook. Okay, so if you walk through a bookstore lately, there are a million cookbooks that are calling you name.

Such pretty covers and pictures and promises of easy dinners. And just put away my wallet when I enter the cookbook section on Amazon y'all. It is such a problem. I love the cookbooks and you probably do too.

They hold such hope. Don't they? Maybe this one will have that perfect recipe I've been waiting for. Maybe this one will make my kids eat spinach. Maybe this one will get dinner on the table in 15 minutes.

We hope for a solution. Plus, you like me might actually like reading cookbooks because it's fun. They're so pretty. It gives us great ideas. Even if you never make the food, I am all for having a cookbook collection.

But if you're not careful, that collection will become an albatross on your back. You will be overwhelmed by all the choices in all the cookbooks.

Not to mention the actual internet if you decide to head to Google or Pinterest. It's just too much. So in today's episode, we're going to create a strategy for how to choose a cookbook.

And the next time you go to Barnes & Noble and walk through those aisles of beautiful hard backs and their siren songs of deliciousness, you'll be better equipped to make a choice.

To buy a cookbook that you'll actually use. In my best infomercial voice, I will say that you too can have a collection of cookbooks that do what you want them to do, a collection of cookbooks that you love. All for three easy payments.

It's my un95. Okay. So let's just start on a piece of cookbook. First though. Can I tell you about a different kind of book that I hope you read?

My friend Shannon Martin, formerly known as Flower Patch Farm Girl, you might know her as that. She would love the fact that we're talking about cookbooks because she loves to cook and is quite good at it.

But she's not just a home cook who likes to make salsa and pie. She is one of the most beautiful writers I have ever encountered with an equally beautiful soul.

Shannon is about to release her second book called The Ministry of Ordinary Places. And I would love for you to go and pre-order yourself a copy.

I'll put a link in the show notes to make it easy, but Shannon writes words you didn't know you needed to hear. In the Ministry of Ordinary Places, which can we just pause for a second to say her great title that is?

She encourages you and me to encounter and receive the love in our own homes, neighborhoods, and ordinary spots in our everyday lives.

I have never met anybody as in love with her neighbors and neighborhood as Shannon. But her enthusiasm, it doesn't make us feel guilty.

And it's not even that she's some crazy extroverted person who doesn't feel weird introducing herself to strangers. It's weird for her too.

But in this book, she helps us see the beauty in what's right next door or across the street or on the walk school.

This book is destined to change my life like her first one did. That's called Falling Free, by the way, and it's beautiful.

And if you want to read, truly, some of the most beautifully constructed sentences about the most ordinary things you will ever encounter, please go pre-order the Ministry of Ordinary Places.

And as a pre-order bonus, this is so fantastic. You actually get a wall calendar of photos of her neighborhood and her own ordinary places.

Pretty serious. So again, I will put a link in the show notes, but it is my absolute honor to point you in the direction of this book.

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