A series of articles, this debut book delivers an account of the dangers of carbohydrate consumption—especially for average eaters who rely on grains and sugars to supply the bulk of their daily diets.
Knight’s theory demonstrates a direct link between carbohydrate consumption and deadly ailments such as cancer and diabetes, along with a host of other diseases like arthritis, dementia, and Alzheimer’s. From the beginning, the author declares sugar as dangerous as nicotine or heroin. Having realized that he could mend previous brain damage and grow new brain cells after a car accident by eliminating grains and all sugars from his diet, the author adamantly promotes a regimen as free of sugars as possible. From there, he explains the impact of sugar consumption on many bodily processes, such as the glycation of cholesterol, which leads to modern illnesses. He also promotes consumption of healthy fats: “Fats won’t glycate other fats…. If, it’s the glycation of cholesterol that leads to most illness and diseases, and building up Nrf2 in your brain can help protect you from that glycation, why wouldn’t you want to build it up?” While scientific in content, the book is also conversational, and written in the first person. For example, the author recounts a story about a friend who decided to have gastric bypass surgery, and argues that this is only a prescription for more future health issues. First, he points out that the bypass patient still faces carbohydrate addiction and has not solved the root of the problem. Next, he points out the dangers of removing part of the stomach: “Your stomach…produces one of the most important hormones for your health, Ghrelin. If you take away the source of this hormone, you’re taking away future health.” While the message is not delivered softly, it is backed with analysis, evidence from other titles, and statistical data regarding the bodily effects of glucose and carbohydrates. Knight’s message is not a mainstream call to limit carbs: It is a full-on attack on carbohydrates as a danger to human health. “Excessive Carbohydrate Consumption is responsible for as much as 42% of all deaths, a minimum of 24 million deaths each year,” the author insists. Readers intrigued by the highly polarized debate between low-carb dieting and carbohydrate-based diets should enjoy this adamant stance. Yet readers searching for a more balanced approach, or those seeking expert medical knowledge, may opt for other titles in the diet and nutrition genre.
A hard-hitting look at the perils of carbohydrates and obesity.Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 216
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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Not an easy read but an essential one.
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Title notwithstanding, this latest from the National Book Award–winning author is no guidebook to getting woke.
In fact, the word “woke” appears nowhere within its pages. Rather, it is a combination memoir and extension of Atlantic columnist Kendi’s towering Stamped From the Beginning (2016) that leads readers through a taxonomy of racist thought to anti-racist action. Never wavering from the thesis introduced in his previous book, that “racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas,” the author posits a seemingly simple binary: “Antiracism is a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity and are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” The author, founding director of American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, chronicles how he grew from a childhood steeped in black liberation Christianity to his doctoral studies, identifying and dispelling the layers of racist thought under which he had operated. “Internalized racism,” he writes, “is the real Black on Black Crime.” Kendi methodically examines racism through numerous lenses: power, biology, ethnicity, body, culture, and so forth, all the way to the intersectional constructs of gender racism and queer racism (the only section of the book that feels rushed). Each chapter examines one facet of racism, the authorial camera alternately zooming in on an episode from Kendi’s life that exemplifies it—e.g., as a teen, he wore light-colored contact lenses, wanting “to be Black but…not…to look Black”—and then panning to the history that informs it (the antebellum hierarchy that valued light skin over dark). The author then reframes those received ideas with inexorable logic: “Either racist policy or Black inferiority explains why White people are wealthier, healthier, and more powerful than Black people today.” If Kendi is justifiably hard on America, he’s just as hard on himself. When he began college, “anti-Black racist ideas covered my freshman eyes like my orange contacts.” This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory.
Not an easy read but an essential one.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-50928-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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