A valuable, no-more-excuses guide to healthy aging.
A debut fitness manual offers advice to older readers who want better bodies with minimal exercise.
In her more than 37 years working as a chiropractor, health care advocate, and fitness expert, Pearson has seen older people who could barely stand up. But she has also known a 92-year-old man who could “grab his foot while standing tall and raise it over his head while keeping his knee straight.” The difference, notes the author, is that the human body ages when it loses motion. This practical guide doesn’t promise to erase wrinkles or turn couch potatoes into marathon runners overnight. Instead, the work provides 12 simple stretches—like the inner thigh stretch for flexibility and the calf stretch for improving balance—that will keep the older body active in less than eight minutes a day. Complete with black-and-white images from Getty, the instructions, including for a shoulder stretch that involves reaching for the ceiling, are easy to follow. Making basic anatomy understandable, Pearson clearly explains the importance of the body’s different systems. For example, the dura mater—a membrane that surrounds the brain and upper spinal column—can cause headaches when damaged, but the author details ways to stretch the dura to alleviate pain. Tossing in a few anecdotes about her patients and herself, Pearson employs a gentle voice that is sometimes humorous (as when she admits to lying to her dentist about flossing). This friendly compendium of advice also teaches the fine art of walking correctly—butt muscles need to be strengthened to effectively push the body forward. And there is an abundance of compelling health information many people may not know; for example, bad posture negatively impacts brain function. Basic cardio fitness, like high-intensity interval training, is addressed, and a few supplements, such as fish oil, are recommended.
A valuable, no-more-excuses guide to healthy aging.Pub Date: March 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982242-00-8
Page Count: 222
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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