A focused, compelling argument for making significant lifestyle changes in the later years.
A former physician offers a well-researched, pragmatic approach to healthy aging.
As baby boomers advance in age, books about healthy aging proliferate. Adding to the category is this title by Schilling, a former physician who started both a health information website and a blog about, among other things, coping with getting old. Here, without making unsubstantiated claims, Schilling offers a sensible, realistic overview of how to combat aging. He first focuses on the “metabolic syndrome” and the problems it can cause as one ages. Schilling suggests that preventionmethods and reducing certain risk factors will potentially allow an individual to live a much longer, healthier life. Most of the book concentrates on the specific steps needed in obvious areas: food, exercise, stress, etc. But Schilling also addresses hormone replacement, vitamins and supplements, as well as how to change and monitor lifestyle habits. The author integrates the results of numerous research studies into the text to add a sense of impartiality to his recommendations. He also supplements the text with several tables that help make absorbing the information more palatable. While a few of his scientific explanations may be a bit too technical for the average reader, Schilling for the most part sticks to easily understood language. Indeed, the doctor writes with both authority and passion; he also describes how he and his wife adopted his food and exercise plans, which lends the book a more believable voice. Schilling does hold some beliefs that readers will have to evaluate on their own terms; for example, he is a strong proponent of bioidentical hormone replacement: “With bioidentical hormone replacement, you can add about twenty years of youthful life without disabilities to the normal life expectancy.” Schilling also endorses eating organic foods and virtually removing sugar and starch from daily diets. To demonstrate that his food constraints are not onerous, however, he helpfully includes several enticing recipes developed by his wife for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
A focused, compelling argument for making significant lifestyle changes in the later years.Pub Date: March 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494765330
Page Count: 200
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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