Sensible and demanding, training both mind and body.
A veteran sports trainer serves up a challenging plan for succeeding instead of just trying to get in a good workout.
How-to-build-a-better-body books litter the landscape, but Mancias has a built-in advantage: LeBron James follows the author’s program, writing in his foreword, “I’m staying in the game for as long as possible by being consistent with my training, my recovery, and eating as clean as I can—and a big part of that is because of Mike.” Mancias reinforces these key points by dividing the book into sections devoted to eating, moving, and mending. Before all that comes the mind—intention and commitment. Afterward comes the stretch. James stretches when he wakes up, before a game, and before going to bed, knowing that keeping the body flexible and tuned means longevity. Mancias counsels eating nutrient-rich foods that both allow movement and promote healing and recovery. As he notes, there’s no promise that his program will help a person shed weight, but if that’s a goal, it can be adapted to accommodate. One thing readers will notice is the author’s devotion to drinking water constantly; another is his view that five or six small meals are better than two or three big ones, since they provide “a constant level of energy that keeps your blood sugar levels even all day.” His repertoire doesn’t require superhuman ability, and some exercises seem downright fun (compared to, say, walking a treadmill) while reinforcing the maintenance and strengthening of the core muscles. Interestingly, those exercises require no equipment, and the author is humane about them. If you’re not used to exercise, Mancias allows a two-days-on-one-day-off schedule instead of a boot camp regimen. Finally, the author insists on recovery through sleep, meditation, and massage, among other things, reassuring, “None of these tactics are ineffective or self-indulgent.”
Sensible and demanding, training both mind and body.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9780063316430
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.
A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation.
Is our biggest spectator sport “a practical means for understanding American life”? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it’s a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, “because football is doomed.” Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC—Klosterman offers an “expository obituary” of a game whose current “monocultural grip” will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces—the NFL’s “cultivation of revenue,” changes in advertising, et al.—will end its cultural centrality. It’s hard to imagine a time when “football stops and no one cares,” but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that’s no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a “niche” pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more “elegant,” but “football is the best television product ever,” its breaks between plays—“the intensity and the nothingness,” à la Sartre—provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing “intellectual density” of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an “ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control.” Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s much‑loved Little House novels.” A beloved sport’s eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining.
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593490648
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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