A meticulous and thoughtful scientific exploration.
A thorough tour of the science of depression, including its causes and its treatment.
Motivated to understand the suicidal depression that plagued a close friend, debut author Zabel, a retired major general in the U.S. Air Force, delved deeply into the constantly evolving research, hoping to find answers. The result is this remarkably comprehensive assessment of the competing theories regarding the reasons for depression, and of its therapeutic treatment. The author lucidly chronicles the shifting expert consensus on depression, from its interpretation as a trauma response to its acknowledgement as a biologically based illness. The candidate causes, however, are many. Is it the result of a chemical deficiency, or an excess of inflammation, or is it a function of cellular energy metabolism? One promising theory, the author notes, views depression as a stultification of neuroplasticity; a brain is in the continuous throes of “abrasion” and repair, and depression may result when the effects of the former surpass the latter’s. Zabel’s study is breathtakingly expansive—she looks at epidemiological surveys of a range of demographics, and provides a rigorous but accessible synopsis of the brain’s general functioning. The book is a combination of highly technical research and anecdotal accounts, as the author interviews many sufferers of depression, endowing the work with a sensitively handled human element. There are times when a lay reader may feel overwhelmed by the large amount of minute detail. However, Zabel never strays too far from the big picture and resists the allure of facile answers: “At my core, I am reductionist—I want to find the simple solution, the fundamental biological problem that is depression...but depression doesn’t support that. It is hugely complex; an emergent outcome of a brain under attack.”
A meticulous and thoughtful scientific exploration.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73584-540-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Sarah Zabel Enterprises, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An unflinching self-portrait.
The tumultuous life of a bisexual, autistic comic.
In her debut memoir, Scottish comedian Brady recounts the emotional turmoil of living with undiagnosed autism. “The public perception of autistics is so heavily based on the stereotype of men who love trains or science,” she writes, “that many women miss out on diagnosis and are thought of as studious instead.” She was nothing if not studious, obsessively focused on foreign languages, but she found it difficult to converse in her own language. From novels, she tried to gain “knowledge about people, about how they spoke to each other, learning turns of phrase and metaphor” that others found so familiar. Often frustrated and overwhelmed by sensory overload, she erupted in violent meltdowns. Her parents, dealing with behavior they didn’t understand—including self-cutting—sent her to “a high-security mental hospital” as a day patient. Even there, a diagnosis eluded her; she was not accurately diagnosed until she was 34. Although intimate friendships were difficult, she depicts her uninhibited sexuality and sometimes raucous affairs with both men and women. “I grew up confident about my queerness,” she writes, partly because of “autism’s lack of regard for social norms.” While at the University of Edinburgh, she supported herself as a stripper. “I liked that in a strip club men’s contempt of you was out in the open,” she admits. “In the outside world, misogyny was always hovering in your peripheral vision.” When she worked as a reporter for the university newspaper, she was assigned to try a stint as a stand-up comic and write about it; she found it was work she loved. After “about a thousand gigs in grim little pubs across England,” she landed an agent and embarked on a successful career. Although Brady hopes her memoir will “make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl,” her anger is as evident as her compassion.
An unflinching self-portrait.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593582503
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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