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A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: “I Know Absolutely Nothing About Skiing,” by Steve Eubanks and Robert LaMarche.

Publisher: Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville.

Price: $12.95.

Almost all of us know someone who refuses to ski.

The merits of gentle persuasion vs. guilt inducement is a topic for another day, but the book’s fictional character, Larry, is riddled with fear about a pending ski trip with his girlfriend, Jennifer, and her co-workers.

Larry, as he states early and often, knows “absolutely nothing about skiing,” but the informative book is simple and easy to read. Its 129 pages can be skimmed in about half an hour.

There is a bit of everything--except skiing technique--for the neophyte who needs to know the difference between snowplowing and snowboarding and a chairlift and a T-bar . . . don’t sit down on the latter.

In keeping with the “I Know Absolutely Nothing” series of books, the story is fictional. A helpful cast of characters--Billy Kiddy, Jimmy Hugo, Phil Mare, Tommy Mole . . . OK, we get the idea--helps the hapless Larry learn about skiing, teaching him everything from what a double-black diamond slope is to proper etiquette when approaching the lift line.

On the minus side, Larry’s trite sense of humor needs some fine-tuning or else there might have to be a chapter added on how he drives everyone away from the hot tub after skiing. But that is the general tone here as evidenced when Larry meets a helpful Picadilli Lane.

“Your mother named you Picadilli?” Larry questions.

“I know. I know. My folks went to London just before I was born, so I ended up with a name I have to explain everyday.”

“Gee, pity they didn’t visit Abbey Road,” Larry says.

Humor aside, the content is good and so is the glossary of ski terms in the last chapter.

Now, if someone could put out a primer on how to walk gracefully in ski boots . . .