by Chris M. Clark & James L. Gibb ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2019
A useful, detailed guide to achieving satiety through reprogramming eaters’ fullness cues.
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A manual offers tips and tricks for losing weight.
Clark and Gibb assert that satiety, or the feeling of fullness, can be obtained not only with the hormones leptin and insulin, but also through social, learned, and environmental factors. The purpose of this book is to reprogram readers’ satiety signals that have been desensitized over time thanks to elements like portion size and advertising. Although the work is well researched and meticulously cites references, neither author is a physician. But what the guide lacks in qualified medical advice it makes up for in comprehensiveness. The volume is almost 800 pages and is the first installment of a three-part series. Because of the length of this tome and the science included, it will appeal to readers who want to achieve that full feeling as well as learn the reasons behind it. For example, there is a section on the causes of overeating that goes into great detail about leptin resistance, sensory inputs, and obesogenic chemicals. There is a lot of eye-opening material here that sets it apart from more run-of-the-mill diet books. For instance, the authors explain why a cluttered home or an open plan living space can spark overeating. While the information about portion size and macronutrients will prove valuable to all diners, the authors also deliver surprising tips. They advise eating purple carrots or Queen Garnet plums because they contain anthocyanins, which helped rats lose weight during clinical trials. There are so many worthwhile tidbits included in the manual that it’s understandable the authors had difficulty paring down the contents. Still, a book of this length should feature an index.
A useful, detailed guide to achieving satiety through reprogramming eaters’ fullness cues. (bibliography)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9875754-7-0
Page Count: 790
Publisher: Quillpen Pty Ltd t/a Leaves of Gold Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Matthew McConaughey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 2020
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
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New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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More by Matthew McConaughey
BOOK REVIEW
by Matthew McConaughey illustrated by Renée Kurilla
by Action Bronson ; photographed by Bonnie Stephens ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 2021
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
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