Valuable popular science.
Brains and hearts preoccupy science writers, so this rare exploration of lungs fills a need.
Pulmonologist Stephen cannot conceal his enthusiasm for his favorite organ as he mixes evolution, medical history, autobiography, and vivid stories of patients with a skillful account of how lungs operate and how we might take better care of them. Latecomers on the evolutionary scene, lungs arrived well after hearts and brains, when fish began leaving the ocean about 400 million years ago. They have a dual purpose: “bringing oxygen in while keeping everything else out. The latter objective is almost impossible…since we take more than fifteen thousand breaths a day.” Along with life-giving oxygen, we inhale waste from factories, vehicles, heating systems, stoves, farms, and construction sites; we also sometimes add toxins that make us feel good. Heart disease and cancer have been declining for decades in the U.S. “In 2008,” writes the author, “respiratory diseases in the United States for the first time replaced stroke as the third-deadliest disease.” Stephen’s expert review of his field’s diseases reveals that lung cancer remains by far the deadliest malignancy. Almost universal in the 19th century and nearly conquered in the 20th, tuberculosis is on the rise and resistant to most antibiotics. Allergies and asthma make up an ongoing epidemic while lung transplants, miraculous when they succeed, are still a work in progress. “The greatest medical story never told” may be that of cystic fibrosis: Before World War II, it was fatal in infancy, but a cure is on the horizon. CF, he writes, “brings together the three main themes of this book—the central importance of the lungs, the courage of patients afflicted by a devastating illness, and the importance of hard work, intelligent observation, and collaboration in the advancement of medical science.” Stephen manages to include Covid-19 but mostly as a lesson in how it spreads; masks help. Regarding yoga, mindfulness, and breathing exercises, the author delivers unimpressive studies but inspiring anecdotes.
Valuable popular science.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4931-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
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
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
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