On Muscle

From the bestselling author of Why We Swim comes a mind-expanding exploration of muscle that will change the way you think about how we move and why it matters.

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, attach to our bones and help us move. Individually, they do different things. Collectively, they drive us through our days.

Join athlete and writer Bonnie Tsui as she jumps headfirst into the intriguing world of muscle from the five angles of strength, form, action, flexibility and endurance. 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, giving 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.

On Muscle is a powerful reminder that using our muscles promote longevity, joy, and, most important, the feeling that we can do anything.

About the Author

Bonnie Tsui is a longtime contributor to The New York Times and the bestselling author of Why We Swim, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Time magazine and NPR Best Book of the Year; it is currently being translated into ten languages. Bonnie is also the author of American Chinatown, which won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and Sarah and the Big Wave, a children's book about the first woman to surf Mavericks and a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection. Her work has been recognized and supported by Harvard University, the National Press Foundation, the Mesa Refuge, and the Best American Essays series. She lives, swims, and surfs in the Bay Area.