A practical, optimistic, and densely informative text aimed at preventing chronic disease.
Lyman offers a medical guide analyzing the latest advancements in (and rewards of) maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Now in his 90s, the author draws on his lengthy career as an investigative medical journalist and writer about chronic diseases in this primer for proactively managing certain chronic diseases. Lyman believes that, while modern science has fortified life and made it somewhat more controllable, this progress has also generated some negative consequences, including environmental chemical toxicity from the production of xenobiotic substances. He asserts that medically revolutionary scientific advancements have brought about a slew of “health conditions of non-obvious origins” like allergies, asthma, fibromyalgia, adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, and others. The author sounds more hopeful when describing the advancements made in the field of human antioxidant use and immune system defense compounds found in many organic plants, fruits, vegetables, and grains. Readers facing a diabetes diagnosis will find Lyman’s straightforward and extensive discussions on the many aspects of the disease immensely worthwhile. Chapters on the dos and don’ts of nutrition (“there’s magic in fermented foods”), vitamins, and lifestyle offer encouragement to eat with balanced nutrition in mind. The text draws from numerous research projects, statistical data, and clinical reference volumes in its balanced analysis of many common chronic ailments, but the main focus is on diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly community. Lyman’s prose is energetic throughout while remaining informative and cautiously optimistic, even if a fair amount of his analysis and health guidance becomes mired in academic medical terminology—the discussion of pharmaceuticals, for instance, may fly above the heads of lay readers. The guide is a useful reminder about the dangers of chronic disease and offers steps to try to avoid it altogether, outlining new medical testing and technology coming down the pipeline. The author clocks his biological age as 20 years younger than his chronological age and attributes that to advancements in nutritional medicine; readers should take note.
A practical, optimistic, and densely informative text aimed at preventing chronic disease.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2023
ISBN: 9798989256006
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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