An accessible, well-researched guide to applying the lessons of endurance training to battling cancer.
A debut author applies lessons learned in triathlon training to his battles with cancer in this hybrid memoir and self-help book.
After completing his first five-kilometer race in 2010, which he haphazardly ran after a wine-fueled late night, author Reynolds was hooked. Gradually working his way through 10Ks, half-marathons, and marathons over the course of a few years, he got involved with triathlons—adding swimming in open water and high-speed bike rides to the mix. He trained with professional athlete Danielle Sullivan before completing Ironman Florida in 2021. At the time he completed the “epic race,” Reynolds writes that he was 55 years old and “in the best shape of my life.” Just months after being declared an Ironman, the author received a life-altering diagnosis: prostate cancer. Part medical memoir, the book surveys his treatment and victory over cancer, only to be diagnosed soon thereafter with advanced colorectal cancer. Reynolds felt that “endurance sports prepared [him] for cancer,” and he applied many of the same techniques used in endurance races to his treatment, such as persevering despite physical pain and mental fog. The book blends engaging autobiographical vignettes, including the author’s work with HIV and AIDS patients in the early 1990s and nonprofit health and human services initiatives as CEO of Long Island’s Family and Children’s Association, with pragmatic wellness advice for readers, particularly those diagnosed with cancer. “Becoming more intentional about small mindset and lifestyle shifts,” he writes, “can dramatically alter the quality and quantity of your days.” These lifestyle shifts include balancing regular, but sensible, exercise with physical, mental, and social rest. Other tips include embracing gratitude and building a team of loved ones and friends whom you can trust as you endeavor to “make every mile matter.” With a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University’s School of Social Welfare, Reynolds bases his claims on research-backed best practices; the book includes scholarly references.
An accessible, well-researched guide to applying the lessons of endurance training to battling cancer.Pub Date: July 22, 2025
ISBN: 9798896944911
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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