Next book

GAME CHANGERS

WHAT LEADERS, INNOVATORS, AND MAVERICKS DO TO WIN AT LIFE

A provocative book that lies on the edges of the self-help universe.

Power, money, sex: Those “mitochondrial imperatives” drive us, but the shell surrounding them can be tweaked to make the ride smoother.

Life-hacking guru Asprey (Head Strong: The Bulletproof Plan to Activate Untapped Brain Energy to Work Smarter and Think Faster—in Just Two Weeks, 2017, etc.), inventor of “bulletproof coffee” and other concoctions, surveys “maverick scientists, world-class athletes, biochemists, innovative MDs, shamans, Olympic nutritionists,” and other such outlying types in order to cobble a system by which, following the rules, readers are meant to become smarter, faster, and happier. Each of those key comparatives comes with a packet of rules and exercises, the first law among which is already widespread: “Use the power of No,” meaning say no more often to the things and people that demand your time. Saying no takes many forms, including reducing the number of choices one has to make in daily life. Buy a simple wardrobe like Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck, eat the same things for breakfast, and put your elective energy into more important decisions. Asprey’s montage of pop-psych from several sources will be familiar to self-help readers (“‘Can’t’ is always a lie”; “When you label something 'bad,’ you miss out on an opportunity to figure out how it can be good”). Less run-of-the-mill is the author’s cheerleading for the use of psychotropic and nootropic drugs; his enthusiasm for LSD would cheer Timothy Leary, while he ties his advocacy of mood enhancement to mental flexibility (and, naturally, has a line of products available to seal the deal). He also advocates for other good things of life, from vitamin D3 to “conscious sex with the right people.” Traditional moralists and gym rats may find some of Asprey’s ideas unsettling, but those who are familiar with more free-form notions of life extension and biohacking will be encouraged to "stop doing the things that make you weak and start doing more of the things that will make you stronger.”

A provocative book that lies on the edges of the self-help universe.

Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-06-265244-7

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Harper Wave

Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2018

Next book

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS

Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...

A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.

In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.

Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.

Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010

ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010

Next book

WHY WE SWIM

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

Close Quickview