  | Book Details Title: Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon |
Book DescriptionAbout the Author Kelly Starling Lyons is the author of multiple award-winning picture books and chapter books, most recently Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice and Sing Inspired Generations, illustrated by Keith Mallett, and the Jada Jones series, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley Newton. Like Philip Freelon, Kelly grew up in Pennsylvania in a family that prized creativity, and now lives in North Carolina with a family of her own. Please visit her website at kellystarlinglyons.com and follow her on Twitter at @kelstarly. Laura Freeman has illustrated more than thirty picture books, including the picture-book edition of Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, which won both the NAACP Image Award and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award, and Jazz Baby and Bedtime Fun, both published by Lee & Low’s Bebop Books imprint. Laura lives near Atlanta, Georgia, and you can find her on the web at lfreemanart.com. Read more Customers Review: Great for preteens. | |
Rabu, 01 Juli 2020
[PDF] Download Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon by Kelly Starling Lyons,Laura Freeman | Free EBOOK PDF English
8 reviews [PDF] Download Teach Me To Feel: Worshiping Through the Psalms in Every Season of Life by Courtney Reissig | Free EBOOK PDF English
 | Book Details Title: Teach Me To Feel: Worshiping Through the Psalms in Every Season of Life |
Book DescriptionAbout the Author Courtney Reissig is an author, speaker, and blogger who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with her husband Daniel and four sons. Read more Customers Review: Christians often struggle handling our emotions. We know that what we feel momentarily doesn’t always align with what we believe to be true eternally. As a woman who loves the Lord and also experiences deep and turbulent emotional waves, this is a tension I wrestle with more days than not.Courtney has written a guide for believers to both acknowledge the reality of our emotions and remember the truth that frees us from becoming defeated by them. By walking through specific Psalms that speak to common feelings – despair, grief, envy, anxiety – she highlights how the psalmists process their emotions via lament, a holy complaint cried out to the Lord that testifies to his sovereignty. Like a compassionate friend, Courtney shares times when she felt discouraged and scared and frustrated, letting us know that we aren’t alone in these feelings, and that the dark emotions come as a result of living in a dark, sin-plagued world. Yet in these gloomy experiences, we also get to experience the hope of the gospel. Like the psalmists, we can look back through history and remember God’s faithfulness, then let this blessed assurance shape how we respond to our scattered emotions.I appreciated the biblically rich content of this book and its overall heart for helping readers feel “well.” Reading it made me want to dig more into the Psalms and set them as a filter for processing my feelings in a God-honoring way. Pick it up, and you’ll be encouraged to look at both your emotions and this beloved book of the Bible in a fresh, freeing way. | |
[PDF] Download Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi | Free EBOOK PDF English
 | Book Details Title: Riot Baby |
Book DescriptionReview “Urgent, brutal. . . . Onyebuchi’s unexpectedly hopeful ending is just as powerful as his unflinching, heartbreaking depictions of racism and cruelty. This staggering story is political speculative fiction at its finest.”―Publishers Weekly, starred review”Onyebuchi sheds light on a world of harsh familiarity and fantastical originality with his incredible worldbuilding and devastating prose. Stark, sharp, and brutal, this story will burn in readers’ minds long after the last page.”―Library Journal, starred review”There is a richness and depth to Onyebuchi’s prose that delivers an intricate and textured world at once rife with violence and teeming with familial love. . . . Onyebuchi demonstrates that dystopia for African-Americans in the U.S. resides in the recent past and continues today.”―Booklist”A thrilling, intense, nail-biting read that transcends genre and has an ending of biblical proportions.”―Grimdark Magazine”Riot Baby bursts at the seams of story with so much fire, passion and power that in the end it turns what we call a narrative into something different altogether.”―Marlon James“Onyebuchi has woven a story as uplifting as it is heartbreaking, an epic ode to the future and past, tiny acts of resistance, love, and the wild unstoppable sweep of revolution.”―Daniel José Older”Tochi Onyebuchi is, primarily, a generous world-builder. His journey into this is honed and sharpened with Riot Baby, which asks a reader to care deeply for the interior of its characters, and the fights they have taken on.”―Hanif Abdurraqib”Riot Baby is the burning embers of a revolution. . . the quiet rage of generations of people who have been told they are lesser than others. It’s the flash of accelerant in a genre that needs the burn.”―Mark Oshiro”Onyebuchi welds a graphic novel sensibility to a searing look at structural inequity in America today. This isn’t Jack Womack or J.G. Ballard’s broken near future: it’s our own photorealistic broken present. Riot Baby is an important book.”―Elizabeth Bear”Stunningly original, brutal, and electric. Onyebuchi’s prose scorches. It’s hard to put this book down, and when you do, it stays with you.”―R. F. Kuang”Onyebuchi’s adult debut is a stunningly, vitally harrowing story and genre at its very best.”―Kiersten White”Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby is thrilling and harrowing in the tradition of Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing.”―Fran Wilde”Powerful. Furious. Riot Baby carries the full weight of black American fury and grief, woven together with a masterful story of two siblings and a magic so powerful it will change the face of everything they know.”―K. B. Wagers Read more About the Author Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of the young adult novel Beasts Made of Night, which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African, its sequel, Crown of Thunder, and War Girls. He holds a B.A. from Yale, a M.F.A. in screenwriting from the Tisch School of the Arts, a Master’s degree in droit économique from Sciences Po, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. His fiction has appeared in Panverse Three, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Obsidian, Omenana Magazine, Uncanny, and Lightspeed. His non-fiction has appeared in Tor.com, Nowhere Magazine, the Oxford University Press blog, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places. Riot Baby is his adult fiction debut. Read more Customers Review: I have to confess: I liked it better when the story centered around Ella as in the very beginning. Still, if your title is Riot Baby, it is good to base your story on the person who was born during the riots following the Rodney King verdict.This book can be unsettling at times. Besides the raw emotion it contains (I was not raised to be comfortable with the F-word and it still takes me out of the story when I encounter it), I also felt somewhat displaced in time. It starts in the past in what is definitely our past but when the characters are adults, it feels too futuristic and technologically advanced to be our world. I also found the shifts in writing somewhat off-putting. I don’t mind change of POV between characters, but when chapters are suddenly in present tense instead of a more typical narrative-style past tense, it clashes for me.So Ella is the big sister of Kev (Kevin), the riot baby. Ella is special. She has powers – powers which seem pretty endless in parts of the book. They’re mostly mind-based. We see her as a young girl whose secret must be hidden, then suddenly we see both her and her brother as adults.We don’t get much of the story of Kevin’s childhood, but we can piece together pieces. Their mother worked herself ragged trying to provide for them. Ella seemed able to take care of herself, but Kev evidently fell in with young men who got him involved with illegal activities and he wound up in prison.The prison section is hard to read as Onyebuchi writes of the treatment of the prisoners. This isn’t quite our earth, but it’s still a place where black lives don’t seem to matter. It’s probably Ella which keeps Kev sane through all of this – although Ella by now is almost a hallucination. I wasn’t always clear when she was visiting him in the flesh and when she was visiting astrally projecting.I’m rambling. This is a book to ponder. Onyebuchi’s writing is compelling – he draws you in. His characters feel very real as do the emotions he portrays. It won’t ever be my favorite book, but I think it’s one I’m going to need to come back to and revisit from time to time.
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[PDF] Download Bow Down: Lessons from Dominatrixes on How to Get Everything You Want by Lindsay Goldwert | Free EBOOK PDF English
 | Book Details Title: Bow Down: Lessons from Dominatrixes on How to Get Everything You Want |
Book DescriptionReview “Lindsay Goldwert goes where many of us haven’t gone before! After reading her lively, funny, thoughtful channeling of wisdom from BDSM workers across the nation, your life will be a little less vanilla. Gentle reader, prepare for armchair travel at its naughtiest and most illuminating. And get ready to have a hell of a lot of fun.” —Sara Benincasa, author of Agorafabulous! Dispatches from My Bedroom and Real Artists Have Day Jobs”If you’re like me and consider yourself a total prude, this book will make you realize how much you’ve been missing. Whether your fantasies lie in the bedroom or the boardroom, Lindsay will give you the courage to go forth and dominate.” —Sarah Cooper, author of How to Be Successful without Hurting Men’s Feelings Read more About the Author Lindsay Goldwert is a journalist and former editorial director of the personal finance app Stash. She also created the podcasts Teach Me How to Money, a top 100 Business Apple podcast, and SPENT, a podcast for the financially challenged that has been featured in The Atlantic, The A.V. Club, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), and others. She has worked as a journalist for more than fifteen years at Glamour, Redbook, CourtTV, ABC News, CBS News, and Daily News (New York). Her writing has appeared in Quartz, AdWeek, Refinery29, Fast Company, Slate, and others. She’s also a stand-up comic who performs all over New York City and has appeared on multiple panels as a speaker and moderator on women and finance, financial education, and more. Read more Customers Review: Don’t let the titillating cover art and kinky subject matter fool you: This is a book about power. Goldwert shows women how to shake off societal expectations of being “nice” and how to avoid the cultural tendency to apologize for existing. She shows the reader how to replace asking for permission to want something with making statements that are assertive, empathetic, and crystal clear. We all want to be heard—Bow Down shows us how to communicate effectively and assures us it’s ok to walk away if something or someone is not serving your needs. | |
[PDF] Download Given by Nandi Taylor | Free EBOOK PDF English
 | Book Details Title: Given |
Book DescriptionReview Starred Booklist Review- February 15, 2020Yenni Aja-Nifemi ka Yirba is the princess of the Yirba tribe and loves studying runes, magical markings for combat and protection. But in a time of mounting political tension, her love of runelore is seen as frivolous, particularly when her family is counting on her entering a politically beneficial marriage to stave off tribal conflict. Doing her part to help, Yenni heads for the colonizers’ nation of Cresh to study at Prevan Academy for Battle and Magical Arts with the hopes of learning enough to keep the throne from being usurped. Surprisingly, the journey becomes one that requires Yenni to learn not only of foreign magic and medicine but also of love as well. In her fresh take on princess and dragon tropes, Taylor eloquently marries Caribbean folklore, magical boarding-school tales, and whimsical interspecies romance. While Yenni’s betrothal to a dragon is surprising at first, there is much delight in her initial resistance to and eventual falling for her Given. Fans of dynamic heroines and those who love romance will delight in how this relationship fortifies both parties, with the unlikely pairing also emphasizing cultural inequities and the devaluation of knowledge originating in African heritages. Alternating narration between Yenni and her Given both rounds out the world building in this story while ever so gently knitting the story of two formerly disparate lives together.― Melanie Kirkwood Read more About the Author Nandi Taylor is a Canadian writer of Caribbean descent based in Toronto. She’s a two-time Watty Award winner, and her Wattpad story Given has garnered over one million reads and earned the 2018 Worldbuilders Watty Award. Nandi grew up devouring sci-fi and fantasy novels, and from a young age wrote books of her own. Her books are an expression of what she always wanted more of growing up―diverse protagonists in speculative settings. Common themes she writes about are growth, courage, and finding one’s place in the world. Read more Customers Review: Well, at least the cover is gorgeous. First off, I’m still puzzling over how the blurb calls this a “subversive fantasy-romance” when honestly it’s pretty much exactly like every other enemies-to-lovers fated mates romance out there. At best, it suggests an unfamiliarity with either genre that explains a lot about this book.“Well, because I am a woman who enjoys hunting, and learning about runes, and learning about combat, people act as if I am strange and unnatural.”“Hmm,” Diedre and Zui said as one.“But it was once very common for women to do these things. You know what I think? I think it is everyone else who is unnatural.”Yenni yearns for more freedom. As a princess, she’s expected to marry the prince of a neighboring tribe, and he expects her to give up her “unfeminine” activities – hunting, weapons practice, and runelore, the magic practiced by the people of the Sha islands. So, she undertakes a journey, sanctioned by the gods, to the empire of Cresh in hopes of finding a cure for her father’s sickness. Enrolling at a prestigious Creshen university to learn more about their magic may be the only way to save him, but navigating Creshen culture and prejudice is an almost insurmountable obstacle she hadn’t expected – as is the interest from one very pushy dragon.I liked Yenni. She’s strong, regal, and not afraid to work hard for what she wants. However, she was painfully oblivious to those who meant her harm, both unintentionally and intentionally. There’s a lot of racism directed at her, but Yenni doesn’t understand why they’re treating her differently – for instance, a classmate asks to touch her hair and then is startled when Yenni asks to touch hers back. It’s 90% through the book before Yenni starts really calling people on the racism – and that’s after she’s revealed as a princess. Most of it’s of the overt variety, rather than microaggressions, and the actions and Yenni’s failure to engage with it made the book read much younger than I expected. One thing that sat uncomfortably with me involved names. Yenni insists on being addressed as “Yenni Ajani” because, in Sha culture, it’s rude to only call someone by their first name unless they’re very close. However, because one-syllable names are only for gods in her culture, Yenni changes her friends’ Creshen names – Harth becomes Har-tha and Weysh becomes Wey-sha – without their input. It was a minor thing, but I didn’t understand why she couldn’t just explain to them why it bothered her and come up with nicknames together.Weysh furrowed his brow, confused. “So I should simply leave her be?”“If that’s what she wants.”“But why? How would that endear me to her?”Zui threw a quick, fond glance at Harth. “Because respecting a woman’s wishes is one of the most seductive things a man can do.” Weysh shook his head. It seemed incredibly counterproductive, but everything else he’d tried so far had been nothing short of disaster.And then there’s Weysh. Frankly, he’s awful. His main fault is that he’s painfully honest – blunt to the point of rudeness, and past that. It’s telling that Yenni finds him “less beastly as a beast.” Frankly, he’s awful to pretty much everyone around him. Somehow, though, all of his friends tell Yenni that he’s hardworking, responsible, good with women – but we never actually see that in the book, we’re only told about it. Even during Yenni’s darkest moments, when she goes to him for comfort, he automatically turns the conversation back to himself – obviously, it’s his fault that she’s having problems because he didn’t take proper care of her! It’s only after Weysh is left partially disabled – unable to smell, which is a big deal for a dragon – that he realizes how badly he’s been treating Yenni.So, what did I like? I loved the magic systems, both the Sha runelore and the Creshen magic. I would happily have read more about Uhad’s 67 laws of casting or why all their incantations need to have “source” in them, but unfortunately the surface is just barely scraped. Runelore, with its hymns and patterns in special paint, was equally fascinating and I loved all the parts involving Yenni explaining it or using it. Disappointingly, while Weysh realizes almost right away that runes would allow him to work magic in dragon form – Creshen magic relies on spoken triggers, and dragons can’t speak – they don’t get around to trying it out until three-quarters of the way through the book.This is the first in a series, so the book ends without much of the plot points being resolved, leaving the ending a bit jumbled. Overall, this isn’t a badly written book, but it felt like it needed tighter editing to figure out what story is being told. Is it about Yenni’s quest to find a cure for her father’s illness? Her relationship with Weysh? Her adventures in Cresh at the university? I was never quite sure. I think this would work for for middle-grade readers, but it’s a bit light for the YA audience.I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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[PDF] Download Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being by Mukta Panda | Free EBOOK PDF English
| | Book Details Title: Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being |
Book DescriptionReview This is a must-read for learners, educators, and practicing clinicians as they journey on the path of mastery. There are lives at stake and treasures of joy and wonder to be found. With this book, the path is illuminated. –Timothy P. Brigham, MDiv, PhD, Chief of Staff and Chief of Education and Organizational Development, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Resilient Threads is a treasure…Mukta Panda has beautifully captured what it means to be a compassionate physician–one who effortlessly dedicates herself to the well-being of not just patients but also colleagues, students and friends alike. Dr. Panda knows what it means to create a psychologically safe workplace–and why it matters for learning, excellence, and full engagement at work. Readers will pick up countless ideas to transform their own workplaces by adopting the author’s generous and curious spirit. –Amy C. Edmondson, PhD, Professor, Harvard Business School, author of The Fearless Organization and Building the Future The external aims to provide better health for society cannot happen without tending to the inner imperatives. We need a holistic approach to individual courage and institutional change, and Dr. Mukta Panda shows us how it can be done. –Donald M. Berwick, MD, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement and former Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services I’m grateful to Mukta for having the courage to share how she keeps her heart open despite heartbreak, and is teaching her medical students and residents to do the same. Internal medicine may be Mukta’s clinical specialty, but she is a healer of the inner life as well. –Parker J. Palmer, author of On the Brink of Everything, The Courage to Teach, A Hidden Wholeness, and Let Your Life Speak A powerful, inspiring example of a physician and mother who reveals the empathy, compassion and self-care needed to get through medical training and to revive the good doctor you hoped to be. –Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP, Associate Chief Medical Officer-Clinical Learning Environment, University of Chicago Medicine Medical students and residents reading her story will learn some of what to expect in a medical career, and for someone like me, 45-plus years into my medical and surgical career, it was an opportunity to reflect: “Oh yes, I remember feeling like that” and “Yes, this is exactly how it feels to connect to a patient. –R. Phillip Burns, MD, FACS, Professor and Chairman, Department of Surgery, University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Chattanooga In a modern world of medicine where workload and the expectations of physicians are as great as they have ever been, a reminder of what makes us tick as doctors is sorely needed. This book provides that and more…I am a better physician for reading it. –Professor Andrew Goddard, MD, FACP (Hon), President of the Royal College of Physicians of London The book serves as a lesson for all of us. We need to recognize our strengths and weaknesses, focus on what is important, and make sure that we have meaning in our lives. –Marc J. Kahn, MD, MBA, MACP, FRCP-London, Tulane University School of Medicine An intimate example of how to live and work, Resilient Threads offers an inspiring model for others to learn from, resonate with, and be emboldened by. –Penelope R. Williamson, co-author of Leading Change in Healthcare, Associate Professor of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Read more About the Author Mukta Panda, MD, MACP, FRCP-London, is an award-winning physician, speaker, and facilitator whose work seeks to transform the heart of patient care and medical education. She serves as the Assistant Dean for Well-Being and Medical Student Education and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine at Chattanooga. To rejuvenate, Mukta likes to take long walks, cook good Indian meals, and plan surprise parties for her loved ones. Visit www.MuktaPandaMD.com and follow her on Twitter @MuktaPandaMD.Timothy P. Brigham, MDiv, PhD, is the Chief of Staff, and Chief Education and Organizational Development Officer at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). He is also Co-Chair of the Physician Well-Being Task Force. Dr. Brigham holds a PhD in psychological studies in education from Temple University, a Master’s degree in counseling and human relations from Villanova University, and a Master’s of Divinity from Palmer Theological Seminary. Read more Customers Review: A beautifully written soulful narrative that encourages us to turn the tapestry of life over to appreciate the wonderful patterns, the tantalizing colors and the rich texture. It is a reminder that no thread is wasted: the random jumble, the frayed, knotted and tangled threads that represent our experiences are all valuable in weaving a meaningful tapestry of our existence. Dr. Mukta Panda by sharing her experiences and wisdom has encouraged us to embrace our wholeness. A MUST read for all. | |
[PDF] Download Boundless: Upgrade Your Brain, Optimize Your Body & Defy Aging by Ben Greenfield | Free EBOOK PDF English
 | Book Details Title: Boundless: Upgrade Your Brain, Optimize Your Body & Defy Aging |
Book DescriptionReview Wall Street Journal bestsellerPublisher’s Weekly bestsellerOne of CNET’s best new health and wellness books to read in 2020“The book you are holding contains the most up to date, cutting edge information on health and fitness. Ben has devoted his life to researching and testing every modality of human performance excellence. His curiosity is boundless and we are the beneficiaries of his tireless dedication to the newest data on sleep, diet, exercise, supplementation and biohacking.” -Rick Rubin“In today’s fitness space, self-experimentation is the name of the game. In this crowd, few are pushing things further than Ben Greenfield.”-outsideonline.com“Ben has always been at the bleeding edge of health and fitness but in Boundless he takes the newest and best information and synthesizes it to address all aspects of performance, health and longevity.”-Robb Wolf, New York Times bestselling author“Boundless means living without limits and this book will show you how. If you are looking for limitless energy, health and how to live your best life, this book is for you.”-J.J Virgin, New York Times bestselling author“Ben Greenfield masterfully combines science, practical experience, recipes for life, and entertaining stories of his extreme experiments to produce an epic book that is inspiring, informative, and life-changing.”-Mark Divine, Founder, President & CEO at Unbeatable Mind & SEALFIT“No one does a deep dive into human health and performance like Ben Greenfield. He leaves no stone unturned as he explores all the recent (and ancient) science surrounding optimal health. No matter where you are on your longevity journey, there are many concepts in this book that, if implemented, will likely change your life for the better.”-Mark Sisson, New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Primal Blueprint and Primal Kitchen“As someone who has always had a hard time sleeping, I’m grateful for Ben’s willingness to be his own case study. I learned so much and will be incorporating some of his suggestions in my sleep life. No one has the time to drill down and get as granular on important self care techniques, but Ben and his new book Boundless provide very detailed solutions that are thankfully spelled out and comprehensive.” -Gabby Reece, American professional volleyball player, sports announcer, fashion model and actress Read more About the Author Ben Greenfield is a former bodybuilder, Ironman triathlete, pro obstacle course racer, human performance consultant, speaker and author of 13 books, including the New York Times Bestseller “Beyond Training”. Ben has been voted by the NSCA as America’s top Personal Trainer and by Greatist as one of the top 100 Most Influential People In Health And Fitness. He works with individuals from all over the globe for both body and brain performance, and specializes in anti-aging, biohacking, and achieving an ideal combination of performance, health and longevity. A frequent contributor to health and wellness publications and a highly sought after speaker, Ben’s understanding of functional exercise, nutrition, and the delicate balance between performance and health has helped thousands of people around the world achieve their goals and improve their quality of life – from high-level CEO’s to executives to exercise enthusiasts, professional athletes and beyond. He is the founder and owner of KION, a nutrition supplements company that combines time-honored superfoods with modern science to allow human beings to achieve peak performance, look amazing, defy aging, and live an adventurous, fulfilling, joyful and limitless life. Ben coaches and trains individuals all over the world for general health, anti-aging, weight loss, lean muscle gain, holistic wellness, and both body and brain performance, both at conferences and getaways and also via online training and consulting. In college, Ben competed in tennis, water polo, and volleyball, then moved on to over a decade of competition in endurance sports, including as a top ranked triathlete, 13-time Ironman triathlete, multiple Ironman Hawaii finisher and member of the pro Spartan team. Ben resides in Spokane, Washington with his wife, Jessa, and twin boys, River and Terran, where he enjoys fiction, guitar, ukulele, spearfishing, bowhunting, plant foraging and cooking. Read more Customers Review: Ben Greenfield has written a big book. I’ve been reading his newsletter for quite some time now and followed him on MindValley. Undoubtedly he lives a healthy lifestyle and has some good advice.But I have a few issues with his book. (note; this review has been edited to reflect how unhappy I am with the book, after reading almost all of it over the course of several days, and the rating went from 2 to 1)1- WAY TOO LONGThe book should have been much more concise and shorter. The author just writes for the pleasure of adding strings of words (or listening to himself?). Let me give you an example :on page 436 he writes “Are there other tactics I could use behind those I’ve mentioned above? Sure, I could go out and buy the fancy under-desk cycling machine I saw a few weeks ago in the back of the airline magazine, I could slap some gravity boots on the old pull-up bar for some Batman-style decompression, and I could probably even hire a Zen master bodyworker to gently massage my tight traps while I’m hunched over the keyboard. But what I’ve shared with you are the tried-and-true tools that have worked best for me without littering my office with every biohack known to man. For even more, listen to my podcast “The Healthy Writer : How to Keep Your Keyboard, Mouse, Laptop and Writing Habits from Destroying Your Health”” and read the book Deskbound by Kelly Starrett (..)”In this paragraph, not only there’s zero useful information, only some random comparisons/metaphors/simili but Ben tells us to listen to more and read more. I already have 600+ pages to read and I need to read more? And that’s not an isolated example. You can find page after page of such verbosity.BAD HUMORI also dislike the college kid humor peppered through the book, often with sexual innuendo, but that’s just me. Example, page 22 :”You have a second brain, and that second brain is not in your head. Think lower. OK, fellas, not that low. Up a bit higher. Yes, the second brain is in your gut”. I don’t find this funny, plus this could have been shortened to “You have a second brain which is in your gut.” 32 words & 159 characters for an idea that takes 10 words and 45 characters. If I’m correct, my version is 3,53 times shorter. 640 pages divided by 3,53? 181 pages.2- NO MENTION OF STUDIES EXCEPT ONLINEWhen science is mentioned it’s in a way which is not academic at all. “One small study showed that…” “One small study also found that”….”Another study showed that…” No author, no date, no idea about the sample size, no footnote. When there’s more detail, for instance in the paragraph about sex that describes “a big observational study on 1,226 men aged seventy or above” (page 455) it turns out that the conclusion quoted by Ben is exactly the one you can find in the abstract on PubMed : “We found a consistent association among older men followed over two years between the decline of sexual activity and desire, but not in erectile dysfunction, with a decrease in serum T” which looks like he did not read the study but just the abstract.NOT ALL STUDIES ARE THE SAMEIn any way, if I compare this to Dr Peter Attia (mentioned in the book, a MD specialized in aging well that I also follow) content, the difference in scientific knowledge is abysmal. Attia is too technical, Greenfield not enough. (EDIT) in response to this review, Ben Greenfield stated that he “wanted to dive more into the practical info and not gum up too many of the pages with nitty-gritty study details”. The problem with that is, you need to login to a website (using your Amazon order reference) and then you are lucky if you find the link to the part of the book you are reading because there a many links, without any indication of which part of the chapter they refer to. When I read a book, I don’t want to have to go online to see if where it’s coming from. Writing “a study has proven this and that” when it has a sample size of 22 individuals is not the same as, say, the China study with a much bigger and longer sample. Additionnally, just because something is published does not mean it is correct. Stanford’s Dr Ioannadis demonstrated years ago why most published research findings are false : cherry picking, poor use of statistics etc. Presenting all type of studies as equal is not adequate, but due to the lack of proper quotes you have no way of knowing what is what, without the extra step of going online.SOME (MANY?) OF THE QUOTED STUDIES ARE JUST HYPOTHETICALThe final straw is that while many studies are purely hypothetical and usually state it clearly, Ben doesn’t relay that. For instance; the study titled “Selection in Europeans on Fatty Acid Desaturases Associated with Dietary Changes” concludes that “We hypothesize that the selective patterns observed in Europeans were driven by a change in dietary composition of fatty acids following the transition to agriculture, resulting in …)” In Greenfield”s book, this translates into “if you have (European) ancestry, you most likely can’t convert ALA into usable DHA and EPA.”. There’s a big gap between “we hypothesize that..” and “you most likely..” and that gap is the difference between science and folk science. But maybe I found the wrong study linked to that part ? Sorry, I forgot I had to do that work myself.3-WRONG WORDS Talking about science, there’s too much confusion or imprecision at times. Page 19, Ben advises to “avoid Toxins”. “Colognes, perfumes, brake dust, smog, heavy metal and even christmas-tree shaped car air fresheners contain toxins that can drastically affect neurotransmitters production…”. It sounds good, except that in science, toxins are only the molecules produced by living organisms: snake venom, fish poison etc. Artificial molecules that might be harmful are not toxins, they are called toxicants. Wrong wording is not a big deal; you may say. In my view it is, in a book that claims to rely so heavily on science. Either it’s scientific or it’s not. Or poorly edited. One mistake is not a big deal, but there are several “pop science” mistakes like that in the book.4- PSEUDO SCIENCESometimes the text is actually pure pseudo-science nonsense. And I am surprised that MDs would recommend this book. Example, the “Cleansing Detox Juice” recipe described page 291, which will “knock out just about any major toxins that are floating around in your system”. This is nonsense. Which toxins exactly? How do they “float”? How does this knocking out work? We have no idea but Ben Greenfield knows. The problem is that there’s no scientific, credible evidence that detox food/juices work at all. According to The Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, “the handful of studies (on detox diets) that have been published suffer from significant methodological limitations including small sample sizes, sampling bias, lack of control groups, reliance on self-report and qualitative rather than quantitative measurements.” According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, “A 2015 review concluded that there was no compelling research to support the use of “detox” diets for eliminating toxins from the body.” Verdict? Junk science right there. It does not mean that Ben’s Juice is bad for your body (garlic, ginger, turmeric, etc). It means that his reason for saying it is good, is completely wrong.5- POORLY STRUCTURED INFORMATIONThe information is scattered. If you take the example of the gut, it’s mentioned in several parts of the book. So either this information is duplicated (and at times it is), or it’s scattered and I have to recompile it myself. Granted, Ben states in the opening that you should not read the book cover to cover, and that it’s more of a cookbook: pick the recipes according to taste. Well, it does not make any sense to me. I don’t want to wait until I read the whole thing from cover to cover, in order to have a holistic view of how to be in good shape and prepare my future. In the same way that I don’t want to read all the recipes in a cookbook before I start cooking.6- ONE PIECE OF INFORMATION CUT IN DIFFERENT PIECES- Page 84, Ben tells us to get curcumin, the active substance in turmeric which has powerful anti-inflammatory effects. – Page 534 we learn that “an effective dose is 1,000 mg but doses as high as 1,500 mg can be absorbed without any negative side effect”.- Page 102 tells us that “an effective dose is up to 8g a day”. That’s quite an increase between 1,000 mg to 8,000 mg. Which is it?- Page 264 we learn that we should actually take a curcumin supplement based on Meriva SF- Page 156 tells us that the dose for this product is 1,000 mg5 different pages for one single topic. How difficult was it to write ONE page about this and reference it throughout the book? This is just an example by the way, there are other cases like this one.6- INCOMPLETE INFORMATION…BUT NOT ONLY I don’t want to go into the curcumin problem but Meriva is not the only provider: Bioperine, CurcuWin, Longvida, NovaSol, and Theracurmin are also good. Also worth noting, the claim relayed by Ben that Meriva’s product increases bioavailability 29 times can’t be taken at face value. According to Pure Prescriptions “what the product actually does is increase the concentration of the phase II metabolic products, namely the glucuronides and sulfates, which are the inactive forms of Curcumin. These glucuronides neither display activity against cancer cells nor inhibit pro-inflammatory NFkB. Their bioavailability claim is based on a single human study involving only nine subjects divided in three arms of the study (three subjects each)”.So the advice here is scattered, incomplete, and apparently not perfectly exact.It’s bad, because you’ll often find throughout the book phrases like on page 149 “research has shown that…”. Well, we can’t say something like that if it’s does not meet the standards of science. Ben should have written “According to certain studies, it is possible that…” unless it’s a randomized double blind placebo control study with compelling evidence.7- WEIRD ADVICESome advice is just weird. I used to be a (deep) freediving instructor so I know a couple things about that topic. At some point in the book you’ll find Static Apnea Tables with the advice to practice apnea on your couch (which is fine) or while driving. Static apnea practice WHILE DRIVING? Are you kidding me? Not only I find this useless because the practice of apnea exercises requires a certain peace of mind and focus that you can’t achieve while driving, but it also creates significant changes in your perception and brain and can be downright dangerous if you are driving. Don’t practice apnea tables while driving!8- BIOHACKS, OR COMMON KNOWLEDGE?Many “biohacks” described are common knowledge ( or easy to find on the web if you are interested in that sort of things). Stretching and movement at your desk? Come on. A google image search will give you a gazillion results in one second. Same for the food tables (see picture) which don’t teach you much : showing pictograms of food in a table, what useful purpose does it serve? In the 2 weeks workout there’s nothing to learn there if you are already into wellbeing and performance : cold showers, yoga, heavy weight lifting, burpees… As for the idea of taking multiple cold showers a day, excuse me, in my office there are no showers. Countless so-called hacks like this work only if you are a home based person. If you are working in an office, a good part of the book is not applicable to you, sorry.9- VOODOO THINKINGThere’s science, and there’s voodoo, or magical thinking. When I read on page 267 about sound healing that “tones that promote healing, happiness and vitality can produce surprising effects and even allow DNA strands to repair themselves,” I know that despite the appearances Ben does not agree with science. I should have known better : he writes page 8 that he “quickly became disillusioned with the failures of modern medicine” and operates ‘with a dose of ancestral wisdom and modern science”. It appears that the dose of modern science is homeopathic, in other words very minimal and diluted to the point of being useless. (if you believe that homeopathy is a proven fact, buy this book because it is not about science but about beliefs).10-BUT BEN LOOKS SO YOUNG, HE MUST BE RIGHTBen Greenfield looks young? Well, he is young. He’s 39. By comparison, Peter Attia is almost 47 years old. Ben’s masterclass on Mindvalley was called “the science of living longer”. If he was 90 and looked like he’s 50 I would have more trust in the fact that he knows how to help you live longer (but that would be anecdotal and not scientific).. I know scores of 40 years old athletes who look great and lean and are in great shape. Go to your gym and you’ll find them. That does not mean Ben’s always wrong though of course – I’m just saying that his argument “I look so young” is not enough because he is, well, young. When I was 39 I did not look much older than him. I have a friend who’s 50, does not do any sport and drinks often, but looks like she’s 40. Good genes lottery.Again, this does not mean that Ben’s ideas are bad : there are a ton of very good points in the book, but the way they are presented, plus the fake veil of science, just do not do it for me.SUMMARYSo in summary this 600 pages book should have been edited to be 200 pages long maximum and perhaps I would have rated it 3 stars, or most likely 2 because of the lack of scientific approach despite the appearances. The editor should have asked the author to slim this brick to an acceptable size, or given that task to someone proficient in editing.I don’t doubt that Ben worked hard on this, but working hard on something does not necessarily make it good. In this current form it’s just an expensive waste of time. Whatever good information there is, is buried in tons of useless verbiage and average or poor quality information which looks like the result of long days of internet searches by an amateur. And frankly quoting your sources on the same page is just a normal thing to do. Well, it would have added another 100 pages to the book… I will keep it on my coffee table but I don’t expect to read it in full anytime soon : the prospect is daunting.Last thing, I find it really hilarious that people leave good reviews based on the fact that the book is “coffee table size” and “hard cover” and “has colors” or “is concise”. Seriously? Either these reviews are from Ben’s friends or the reviewers have no idea what the book is about – which makes their review worthless in both cases. Plus, the printing is not that good, the colors are just accents (1 color per chapter) so they don’t bring any value and the paper is wavy (see picture). Not a big deal though.My review is honest, I read regularly Ben Greenfield’s newsletter (but I’ll unsubscribe today) but I have never met him, I have no book or service to sell, I bought the book at the full price and after reading a good part of it I am quite unhappy with it, but I can’t return because I’ve made comments in the margins.SHOULD YOU BUY THIS BOOK ? If you like magic thinking, believe that science is not serious but like to see scientific studies quoted, and can’t perform an internet search, OR if you absolutely love Ben and consider he’s right in everything he says, buy this book, it will comfort you in your opinions.If you are really interested in reading good, serious science backed advice about living a long lasting healthy and well performing lifestyle, don’t buy it.
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