On Muscle
The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters
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Narrated by:
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Bonnie Tsui
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By:
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Bonnie Tsui
About this listen
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.
Critic reviews
“Bonnie Tsui has done something remarkable. Fusing science writing, memoir, and essay, she has written a singular book about the true meanings of strength and flexibility, about our ability to define who we are and who we might be, and about what muscle means to the kind of people who rarely feature in stereotypical stories of strength and fitness. On Muscle is a truly moving ode to the tissues that move us.”—Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes and An Immense World
“Bonnie Tsui writes with uncommon elegance and warmth—about muscle, yes, but more than that, about movement and joy and the gorgeous, often surprising ways they entwine. On Muscle is literary and deeply personal, but also rigorously researched and powerfully inspiring. It made me want to run, jump, grab my bike, any one of which I would have done had I not at the same time been unable to stop reading.”—Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff, Gulp, and Fuzz
“Only a seriously skilled storyweaver like Bonnie Tsui can combine science, sociology, and personal experience into a joyfully careening tale about something we all take for granted but none of us really understands. The genius of On Muscle is showing not only how physical strength animates our bodies, but every other aspect of life as well. You’re about to learn more about yourself and your world than you could ever imagine.”—Christopher McDougall, New York Times bestselling author of Born to Run
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Story
Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians, and lifelong fans. In The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally acclaimed talent.
By: Neko Case
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The Sirens' Call
- How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
- By: Chris Hayes
- Narrated by: Chris Hayes
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.”
By: Chris Hayes
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Original Sins
- The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
- By: Eve L. Ewing
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Eve L. Ewing
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Why don’t our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they’re actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America’s classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to maintain the nation’s inequalities. It’s a task at which they excel.
By: Eve L. Ewing
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The River Has Roots
- By: Amal El-Mohtar
- Narrated by: Gem Carmella
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family. There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees. But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…
By: Amal El-Mohtar
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In Open Contempt
- Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space
- By: Irvin Weathersby Jr.
- Narrated by: Irvin Weathersby Jr.
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Amid the ongoing reckoning over America’s history of anti-Black racism, scores of monuments to slaveowners and Confederate soldiers still proudly dot the country’s landscape, while schools and street signs continue to bear the names of segregationists. With poignant, lyrical prose, cultural commentator Irvin Weathersby confronts the inescapable specter of white supremacy in our open spaces and contemplates what it means to bear witness to sites of lasting racial trauma.
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Extraordinary
- By Adera Causey on 01-10-25