A sharp—and funny—account of one man’s attempt to understand why so many of us suffer head pain.
It’s not just in his head.
Zeller, a former New York Times journalist, dives into a topic whose central feature is, in the words of author Elaine Scarry’s description of all pain, its “unsharability…its resistance to language.” Zeller’s excellent debut book is largely about migraines, an affliction that plagues millions, derails careers, threatens lives, and yet is largely overlooked by the vast biomedical research community. Zeller recounts the long history of migraines, from ancient Egyptians to Darwin, and the often brutal measures applied to relieve the pain. The most disturbing part of the book is his personal story, and the stories of dozens of sufferers, who all pay the price of a life diminished by sudden, unrelenting, excruciating pain. The author reports that there are roughly 700 headache specialists with diplomas in the world. “In Montana, where I now live,” he writes, “there is one.” Yet the affected population is estimated to be 50 million people. Direct and indirect costs, according to a 2018 estimate, is about $28 billion annually. Even with such enormous health and economic consequences, federal research investments fall far short of matching the burden of the disorder. Zeller reviews the available treatments, some prescribed, most not, and a few illegal. His personal experience with many of them and his investigation leave him with the view that most don’t work, some work in the short term, and a handful of newly approved (and expensive) medications don’t have a track record of effectiveness. Headache patients, he writes, must often endure a “long, zigzagging journey through a pharmacological forest.” Zeller’s search to explore the frontiers of headache research takes him to a few leaders in the field who are pursuing tantalizing new findings. While they are engaged in intense competition, their numbers are few, their resources comparatively meager, and their progress uncertain.
A sharp—and funny—account of one man’s attempt to understand why so many of us suffer head pain.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780358507758
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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