A wide-ranging and informative guide that may feel a bit overlong to some readers.
An exhaustive handbook on sleep apnea, written with a humorous edge.
McCarty, the former medical director of the Colorado Sleep Institute, and Stothard, the institute’s R&D director, have done a splendid job of combining scientific data, practical and straightforward advice, and zany, confident cartoons in this manual. It’s chock-full of useful information as it guides readers through expert opinions on diagnosis, appliances, surgeries, and such alternative therapies for sleep apnea as playing the didgeridoo and singing, as well as resources for further study. Overall, this is a truly thorough compendium, but at more than 300 pages in length, it might be lengthier than some want or need. The humorous tone and the whimsical black-and-white line-drawing cartoons by McCarty seem meant to provide balance to the extensive text. Some will find that they offer moments of welcome relief; for others, the cartoon adventures of the fictional Claudio Mahoney, who suffers from sleep apnea, may be a distraction. For those who desire a more straightforward transmission of information, the authors kindly oblige; starting with Chapter 78, they offer a summary of the most important points, followed by discussion of treatment trajectories, complications, and competing diagnoses along with case studies illustrating the numerous facets of sleep apnea and a list of medications and their effects. At one point, the authors explain their creative process, which involved turning the manuscript into a conversation to allow themselves to find their narrative voice—a rare and refreshing revelation in a medical guide. For students planning to specialize in this field, this book is a gold mine: a user-friendly textbook that’s well organized, friendly, and clear.
A wide-ranging and informative guide that may feel a bit overlong to some readers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-66785-800-5
Page Count: 358
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
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
BOOK REVIEW
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