An unevenly executed but often empowering guide for taking control of one’s health care experience.
Two doctors guide patients in how to be their own health care advocates and navigate the dizzying world of medical treatment.
Danziger, a professor of medicine, pharmacology, and physiology at the University of Illinois Chicago, and Gellens, a medical director and nephrologist at Baxter Healthcare, offer this book as a starting point for novice patients seeking advice for interacting with members of the medical community. It’s also aimed at those looking to get a better understanding of their own health. At its heart is an emphasis on “partnering” with one’s doctor by being prepared for appointments, communicating honestly about symptoms, and clearly expressing when one doesn’t understand something: “Your doctor isn’t an authority figure to be obeyed by a compliant patient. Those days are over,” the authors say, stressing that “you need to be able to talk to your doctor about your health concerns and not fear that you’ll be belittled or dismissed.” The authors encourage patients to research their symptoms by using a hodgepodge of sources, including leading medical journals. However, they could have dedicated more space to the importance of sorting through such information with a critical eye. However, the authors do their best to help patients parse scientific journal language, and they dedicate a chapter to tips for understanding such articles. The book also gently reminds readers that doctors aren’t perfect—diagnoses and treatments can be influenced by specialist bias, a lack of experience, the constraints of one’s insurance network, or even corruption. It also points out that diagnoses are often trial-and-error processes and that few solutions come fast and easy. However, this guide does sometimes feel like an attempt to lighten the burden of blame that falls on medical doctors when diagnoses and treatments don’t work in a patient’s favor. The book also turns medical conditions into systematic puzzles while glossing over the emotional toll that chronic conditions can take. In addition, it underemphasizes the degree to which minority populations are disadvantaged in a health care system with demonstrably inequitable practices.
An unevenly executed but often empowering guide for taking control of one’s health care experience.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-34127-9
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Kamoh Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.
A duo of French mathematicians makes the scientific case for God in this nonfiction book.
Since its 2021 French-language publication in Paris, this work by Bolloré and Bonnassies has sold more than 400,000 copies. Now translated into English for the first time by West and Jones, the book offers a new introduction featuring endorsements from a range of scientists and religious leaders, including Nobel Prize-winning astronomers and Roman Catholic cardinals. This appeal to authority, both religious and scientific, distinguishes this volume from a genre of Christian apologetics that tends to reject, rather than embrace, scientific consensus. Central to the book’s argument is that contemporary scientific advancements have undone past emphases on materialist interpretations of the universe (and their parallel doubts of spirituality). According to the authors’ reasoned arguments, what now forms people’s present understanding of the universe—including quantum mechanics, relativity, and the Big Bang—puts “the question of the existence of a creator God back on the table,” given the underlying implications. Einstein’s theory of relativity, for instance, presupposes that if a cause exists behind the origin of the universe, then it must be atemporal, non-spatial, and immaterial. While the book’s contentions related to Christianity specifically, such as its belief in the “indisputable truths contained in the Bible,” may not be as convincing as its broader argument on how the idea of a creator God fits into contemporary scientific understanding, the volume nevertheless offers a refreshingly nuanced approach to the topic. From the work’s outset, the authors (academically trained in math and engineering) reject fundamentalist interpretations of creationism (such as claims that Earth is only 6,000 years old) as “fanciful beliefs” while challenging the philosophical underpinnings of a purely materialist understanding of the universe that may not fit into recent scientific paradigm shifts. Featuring over 500 pages and more than 600 research notes, this book strikes a balance between its academic foundations and an accessible writing style, complemented by dozens of photographs from various sources, diagrams, and charts.
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9789998782402
Page Count: 562
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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