Meticulous, well-supported information with practical application. A valuable reference.
Strong arguments for making vigorous exercise part of a healthy lifestyle; coupled with careful, well-illustrated exercise regimens designed to prevent or relieve specific medical conditions. Washington Post health writer Carol Krucoff and cardiologist Mitchell Krucoff (Duke University Medical Center) remind us once again that exercise relieves stress, boosts mood, enhances self-esteem, helps maintain a healthy weight, improves sleep, prompts a desire for healthy food, enhances self-efficacy, and promotes “hardiness” (making us “less vulnerable to the ravages of daily problems”). They first discuss in detail exercises and programs for general health and fitness. Then, arranged by body system, they set out the facts of various medical disorders, explain how exercise can help, and provide an exercise prescription. Covered herein are metabolic disorders (e.g., diabetes), mental health conditions, orthopedic disorders, cardiovascular disorders, immunological conditions (from colds to AIDS and cancer), men’s health, women’s health, and respiratory disorders. For instance, we learn that since exercise speeds the passage of food through the intestinal tract, it lessens the length of contact between carcinogens in food and the colon wall—which “may explain why physically active men have half the risk of colon cancer as their sedentary peers.”
Meticulous, well-supported information with practical application. A valuable reference.Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-609-60222-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2000
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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