The Blue Zones
From the number one New York Times bestselling coauthor of Judge & Jury and Lifeguard comes this electrifying solo debut, The Blue Zone. Kate Raab's life seems almost perfect: her boyfriend, her job, her family . . . until her father runs into trouble with the law. His only recourse is to testify against his former accomplices in exchange for his family's placement in the Witness Protection Program. But one of them gets cold feet. In a flash, everything Kate can count on is gone. Now, a year later, her worst fears have happened: Her father has disappeared—into what the WITSEC agency calls "the blue zone"—and someone close to him is found brutally murdered. With her family under surveillance, the FBI untrustworthy, and her father's menacing "friends" circling with increasing intensity, Kate sets off to find her father—and uncover the secrets someone will kill to keep buried.
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Reporter Dan Buettner walks through five regions where people live healthy past 100, Sardinia, Okinawa, Loma Linda, the Nicoya Peninsula, and Ikaria, and pulls out nine common habits in food, movement, and community.
The Blue Zones was written by Dan Buettner and published in 2008. Buettner is a National Geographic explorer; the metadata above lists Andrew Gross in error. Buettner's Blue Zones became a major franchise including a Netflix documentary series.
Buettner's reporting on long-lived populations in Sardinia, Okinawa, Loma Linda, Costa Rica, and Ikaria is grounded in real demographic and lifestyle research. Some specific claims about diets and centenarian rates have been challenged. The general framework remains widely cited.
The Blue Zones is 352 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Blue Zones takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
The Blue Zones is a standalone novel by Andrew Gross, not part of a series.
The Blue Zones is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.