A conversational, persuasive guide to health problems that plague many women.
A short, accessible guide to common ailments, with quick explanations of their causes and possible remedies.
Cullen isn’t a doctor, nutritionist or health expert, but she has a natural curiosity toward healthy, holistic living and a knack for sharing her research. Her book looks at a wide range of everyday health problems that women face, from premenstrual syndrome to liver and kidney dysfunction, and attempts to delineate some easily fixable nutritional and environmental causes. Cullen shows how anyone can avoid these common ailments with medication and/or changes to diet and daily practices. For example, she posits that PMS symptoms can be completely avoided if one becomes more mindful of one’s consumption of xenoestrogens, chemicals in food that imitate estrogen and throw one’s hormonal balance out of whack. Avoiding xenoestrogens, she says, means eschewing animal products produced by factory farming, as such farming methods encourage the use of xenoestrogens in livestock to speed growth and production. The author also discusses natural herbal remedies that have been shown to improve kidney and liver function, among other topics. Although some passages aren’t backed up by statistical research or citations, most of the information presented is basic enough that readers could easily study the topics further with a quick Internet search. Cullen also clearly explains a variety of healthy habits, such as eating whole foods and various herbs while steering clear of chemical-laden convenience foods that contribute to poor nutrition. Most herbal remedies and nutritional fixes are successful on a case-by-case basis; one body may react negatively to gluten, for example, while another might have trouble digesting meat and dairy. But it would be hard to refute this book’s overall notion that most human bodies would benefit from a diet rich in natural, plant-based foods, and an absence of highly acidic, highly processed substances.
A conversational, persuasive guide to health problems that plague many women.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1490439495
Page Count: 210
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
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
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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