A physician tells you everything you ever wanted to know about life extension with less nonsense than usual.
The latest in the author’s How Not To series.
Readers who agree that anti-aging books are largely “hype and lies” may perk up to learn that Greger not only proclaims that he is a scientist, but he writes like one. The author delivers a lengthy, encyclopedic account of life-extenders that explains how they work and examines research supporting them, and he is not shy about expressing skepticism. But skeptics often have a modest readership, while enthusiasts write bestsellers; Greger clearly understands this, so he leans over backward to express enthusiasm. The author begins with a discussion of proven elements that lead to longer, healthier lives, including long-lived parents, a plant-based diet, exercise, good medical care, and the money to afford quality food and medical care. After this brief introduction, Greger focuses on an extremely wide variety of nutrients, herbs, foods, spices, new and old drugs, genetic manipulation, specific diets, attitudes, and even geographical areas that published research suggests may prolong lives. Some of the world’s longest-living people include Okinawans and Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. The U.S. as a whole is 45th in the world in life expectancy. Relentlessly optimistic, Greger includes numerous life-extenders backed by a single study, which he admits is not the strongest evidence. A long middle section on how to preserve function as you age may be the most useful, despite its lack of life-extension hype. The author’s avalanche of information is genuinely educational, although an active, middle-class vegetarian probably already possesses more than 90% of what’s proven to maximize their lifespan. None of Greger’s revelations seems likely to lead to vast life extension, but this is a welcome addition to a genre that continues to grow in popularity.
A physician tells you everything you ever wanted to know about life extension with less nonsense than usual.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781250796332
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
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