An authoritative, informative, and entertaining book that will change the thinking about what comes out of our bodies.
A remarkable study of how human feces could play a crucial role in a sustainable future.
Nelson, an award-winning science writer with a background in microbiology, believes that human excrement is a valuable resource, and he examines the subject from many different perspectives. The author displays an admirable willingness to investigate personally, and his travels include a reclamation plant in Kenya and a range of treatment facilities in the U.S. The idea of fertilizer derived from feces has been around for a long time, but new research has shown more effective methods for removing the pathogens and utilizing the treatment byproducts—e.g., heat and methane. The water in sewage can be extracted, purified, and returned to the environment. The Blue Plains plant that serves Washington, D.C., puts roughly 3,500 gallons of clean water into the Potomac River every second. Fecal matter, broken down by fly larvae, can also make fuel briquettes, and one ton of briquettes can replace more than 20 trees that would have been used for firewood. Nelson also investigates the medical uses of the bacteria in feces, citing numerous cases of people who have insufficient bacteria in their own gut who have had beneficial bacterial transplants. This is just scratching the surface of a field with a huge amount of potential. The biggest problem with treating feces as a resource is the yuck factor, which probably has roots in diseases like cholera. The attitude has been hard to shift, but with an increasing awareness of resource depletion, it might be changing. Nelson speculates that the future of feces reclamation should include household- or neighborhood-scale plants, and the chapter on new-generation composting toilets is particularly interesting. It all adds up to a fascinating book punctuated with humor and imbued with optimism about the future. “Sometimes,” writes the author, “hope arrives in surprising packages.”
An authoritative, informative, and entertaining book that will change the thinking about what comes out of our bodies.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-2002-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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
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