From the bestselling author of Why We Swim comes a mind-expanding exploration of muscle-from our ancient obsession with the ideal human form to the modern science of this amazing and adaptable tissue-that will change the way you think about what moves us through the world.
"Remarkable . . . A singular book about the true meanings of strength and flexibility, about our ability to define who we are and who we might be."
-Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes
In On Muscle, Bonnie Tsui brings her signature blend of science, culture, immersive reporting, and personal narrative to examine not just what muscles are but what they mean to us. Cardiac, smooth, skeletal-these three different types of muscle in our bodies make our hearts beat; push food through our intestines, blood through our vessels, babies out the uterus; attach to our bones and allow for motion. Tsui also traces how muscles have defined beauty-and how they have distorted it-through the ages, and how they play an essential role in our physical and mental health.
Tsui introduces us to the first female weightlifter to pick up the famed Scottish Dinnie Stones, then takes us on a 50-mile run through the Nevada desert that follows the path of escape from a Native boarding school-and gives the concept of endurance new meaning. She travels to Oslo, where cutting-edge research reveals how muscles help us bounce back after injury and illness, an important aspect of longevity. She jumps into the action with a historic Double Dutch club in Washington, D.C., to explain anew what Charles Darwin meant by the brain-body connection. Woven throughout are stories of Tsui's childhood with her Chinese immigrant artist dad-a black belt in karate-who schools her from a young age in a kind of quirky, in-house Muscle Academy.
On Muscle shows us the poetry in the physical, and the surprising ways muscle can reveal what we're capable of.
Über den Autor Bonnie Tsui
BONNIE TSUI ist in Queens, New York, geboren und auf Long Island aufgewachsen. Da sich ihre Eltern in einem Schwimmbad in Hongkong kennenlernten, schien es nur logisch, dass sie und ihr Bruder eine Karriere als Leistungsschwimmer anstrebten, die ein Jahrzehnt andauerte. Sie studierte englische und amerikanische Literatur an der Harvard University, deren Sportteams sie auch als Ruderin und Snowboarderin bereicherte - und schloss ihr Studium mit Bestnote ab. Sie veröffentlichte u. a. in der New York Times, im National Geographic, in The Atlantic und dem California Sunday Magazine. Bonnie Tsui lebt, schwimmt und surft in der San Francisco Bay Area.