A practical, motivational compendium on aging healthfully, gracefully, and as slowly as possible.
A scholarly how-to guide targets men eager to impede “the shipwreck of old age.”
Firmly believing that sexual aging in men “should be a priority of public healthcare,” European urologist and gerontology expert Debled has crafted an exhaustive debut manual. It is geared toward educating readers in what he believes to be the proven methodologies and therapies in delaying and preventing the aging of the male body. He writes that beginning at age 40, a majority of men begin to develop disorders such as tiredness, depression, inexplicable weight gain, hypertension, cardiovascular problems, and sexual regression. Debled directly attributes these potentially serious conditions to a naturally occurring phenomenon called andropause, which causes a pathologic fall in the production of dihydrotestosterone, the hormone responsible for male sexual vitality and function. With a sense of urgency and backed by a wealth of supporting medical information, the author delivers his verdict that andropause, though largely unacknowledged, is responsible for sexual aging in men and a contributor to a host of other related diseases. As a chief researcher of this gerontological condition for many decades, Debled fortifies his book with pertinent clinical facts, background data, and professional opinions that provide a firm case for the use of the synthetic steroid mesterolone as a defense against the progressive, systemic deterioration of the aging male. Accessible explanatory opening chapters describe the role of testosterone (“the hormone of long life”) within the male body and the side effects of hormone deficiency–causing andropause as men typically approach their fourth decade. The author dutifully incorporates photographs, charts, medical illustrations, diagrams, and a great amount of historical and current statistical data to further reinforce his assessment that a consistent supply of free-flowing hormones is the key to healthy male longevity. “Causes of aging are the main source of discomfort,” he writes. “They must be the subject of special attention.” Debled repeatedly gives due consideration to his own urological medical practice, where he has been prescribing hormone replacement therapy to aging patients for decades and has seen great restorative success in their “physical, psychic, and sexual activity.” While eye-opening sections on the maladies older men face—including premature sexual aging and prostate cancer—are distressingly worrisome, the author vigorously promotes the use of revitalizing male hormone replacements and presents a firm, convincing argument for their clinical administration. Though clearly Debled’s primary focus is on the preservation of male vigor, his comprehensive book is not esoteric. Female readers may find some useful knowledge and food for thought buried within commentary on sustaining optimum health through the consistent monitoring of cholesterol, blood pressure, excess weight gain, and age-associated frailty. This kind of general medical information can serve as a universal reminder of the need for proactive health maintenance. Obviously, Debled’s prescription for restorative wellness is not the definitive answer to agelessness. But he offers illuminating advice and a surfeit of information that men of a certain age in particular should certainly appreciate and perhaps act on.
A practical, motivational compendium on aging healthfully, gracefully, and as slowly as possible.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5355-9014-3
Page Count: 264
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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