Sharp, optimistic, and factually supported encouragement to boost societal attitudes about the power of salubrity.
An epidemiologist reframes the American health care crisis.
Born in Malta and raised in Canada, Galea (Dean, Boston Univ. School of Public Health; Healthier: Fifty Thoughts on the Foundations of Population Health, 2017, etc.) has traveled the world treating patients in remote areas, experiences that shaped his impressions of what truly influences health and health care, two aspects of medicine that are often conflated. He underscores global statistical trends revealing that despite leading investments in health prevention, Americans still fall short on worldwide illness ratios. Galea faults a society that “is simply not oriented to keep[ing] us healthy” and seeks to gain a better understanding of how to achieve ultimate vitality and longevity. He offers a reassessment of the many elements of sustainable health and wellness, examining a wide variety of external, interconnected forces. While acknowledging that some influences—e.g., intergenerational factors and certain environmental conditions—are unavoidable, he intensively addresses the building blocks of sustainable health while putting allegories and pop-culture references to effective use. These key pieces include creating solid financial foundations, including the use of redistributive economic programs; resisting corruption in high-level political and corporate arenas; encouraging the establishment of tightknit community networks; cultivating emotional well-being; advocating for knowledgeable personal choices that resist negative influences from social media networks, advertising, and “social contagion.” Galea believes that all of these forces collectively affect the healthfulness of Americans and that each plays a role in fostering an important brand of preventative medicine that can be cultivated at home. He implores readers to take the steps to change their minds and bodies now rather than relying on medicine or chronically seeing doctors after we are already ill. While some areas of the author’s research may seem like wishful thinking in today’s world of greed, violence, and class inequities, his hopes for a healthier populace make for a compassionate, relevant book.
Sharp, optimistic, and factually supported encouragement to boost societal attitudes about the power of salubrity.Pub Date: May 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-19-091683-1
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.
A British novelist turns to autobiography to report the manifold symptoms and management of his debilitating disease, depression.
Clever author Haig (The Humans, 2013, etc.) writes brief, episodic vignettes, not of a tranquil life but of an existence of unbearable, unsustainable melancholy. Throughout his story, presented in bits frequently less than a page long (e.g., “Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack”), the author considers phases he describes in turn as Falling, Landing, Rising, Living, and, finally, simply Being with spells of depression. Haig lists markers of his unseen disease, including adolescent angst, pain, continual dread, inability to speak, hypochondria, and insomnia. He describes his frequent panic attacks and near-constant anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Haig also assesses the efficacy of neuroscience, yoga, St. John’s wort, exercise, pharmaceuticals, silence, talking, walking, running, staying put, and working up the courage to do even the most seemingly mundane of tasks, like visiting the village store. Best for the author were reading, writing, and the frequent dispensing of kindnesses and love. He acknowledges particularly his debt to his then-girlfriend, now-wife. After nearly 15 years, Haig is doing better. He appreciates being alive and savors the miracle of existence. His writing is infectious though sometimes facile—and grammarians may be upset with the writer’s occasional confusion of the nominative and objective cases of personal pronouns. Less tidy and more eclectic than William Styron’s equally brief, iconic Darkness Visible, Haig’s book provides unobjectionable advice that will offer some help and succor to those who experience depression and other related illnesses. For families and friends of the afflicted, Haig’s book, like Styron’s, will provide understanding and support.
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312872-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Readers Donate Depression Book After Star Suicide
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