My friends the World Wine Guys (aka Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen) have been busy lately, it seems.

First, they publish the Fire Island Cookbook just in time for Summer, and now that Summer is coming to a close they’re already back on the shelves with another well-executed tome, Wines Of The Southern Hemisphere (Sterling Publishing, about $24).

I’m not sure how they did all of this, but I am starting to strongly suspect that illegal human cloning is involved, because the work that seems to have gone into these releases is bordering on astonishing.

I like the book, and since I received two sample copies (not sure how or why that happened), I’ve decided that we’ll give away TWO copies to two (separate!) lucky 1WD readers…

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There’s still time, people.

Summer’s muggy, sunny weeks are not yet entirely on the wane. They’re just mostly on the wane. And so those bibliophile oenophiles who are looking for last-minute beach-side vacation or porch-side stay-cation reading to accompany a cold glass of Italian Vermentino in the hazy heat (you are drinking Vermentino, right?) still have time to indulge both of their passions before the leaves turn brown.

Which all felt like a reasonable excuse, I thought, to take a swipe at the growing stacks of wine book samples that have been piling up on my office floor (not quite as bad as my stacks of wine bottle samples, but it’s getting close!). I.e., let me trudge through the drudge so that you won’t have to!

That swipe yielded three books worth mentioning, all of which avoid being weighty tomes or polemics on wine philosophy, and are light-hearted enough in tone and design to fit right in with the collective American penchant for light Summer reading…

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I first met the World Wine Guys (otherwise known as Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen) when in New York City tasting through a shedload of New Zealand Sauv Blancs and Pinot Noirs (and learning how the Kiwis shuck oysters).

At the time, they told me that they were in throes of writing not a wine tome (despite their impressive resume of wine publication contributions), but a… cook book.

They Summer (now there’s a verb only ascot-wearing jet-setters could love) at a place called Fire Island in the Hamptons (which I like to call the South Fork, because it pisses Hamptonites off when I do that), where there are few restaurants. Out of necessity, they therefore spent a lot of time devising meals and procuring the local fresh produce to make them during their Summer holidays. The result of their experience is the brand-new – and quite excellent – Fire Island Cookbook, recently released by Atria Books (hardback will set you back about $20, the eBook version runs about $15 – I received a sample copy).

To celebrate the dawn of Summer, I’m giving away a hardback copy of The Fire Island Cookbook – here’s how to get in on that action…

For a chance to win, leave a comment on this post and let us know your fave Summer food and wine pairing (I’m particularly interested in your go-to Summer wines… for some reason I’ve been craving Vermentino myself…). On June 5th (in one week), I will randomly pick a commenter from those comments, who will then take home a copy of the book.

Simple enough, right? So get crackin’ – let us know about those awesome Summer culinary picks!

Cheers – and good luck!

Mary Frances Kennedy (M.F.K.) Fisher shuffled off the mortal coil twenty years ago this Summer.

Twenty years on after her departure, her status has not change a single jot: Fisher’s still the greatest food writer who has ever lived.

Don’t believe me? Try out the latest collection of some of her work, Musings On Wine And Other Libations (about $18; I received a review copy), which focuses almost exclusively on Fisher’s wine prose and is edited by Anne Zimmerman (who last year wrote the book on Fisher – literally).

What you will find is a writer who had an ability to ingrain context into wine tales that was so uncannily pure that I suspect it was enmeshed within her DNA, along with an editor who puts context on top of all that context. Musings On Wine And Other Libations ends up providing a surfeit of context that should get most wine geeks swooning.

And when you read Fisher’s insightful musing about vino, know this: as god as it is, it probably isn’t even her best writing…

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