This book is written for what is called the “Highly Sensitive Person”, which makes it sound like a very rare snowflake condition, when in fact the diagnostic criteria (discussed early in the book) yield a population bell curve of 30:40:30, whereupon 30% are in the band of “high sensitivity”, 40% “normal sensitivity” and the remainder “low sensitivity”. You may note that “high” and “low” together outnumber “normal”, but statistics is like that.

So, if you’re one of the approximately one in three people who fall into the higher category, and/or you have a loved one who is in that category, then this book looks at the many advantages to a commonly stigmatized and (by cruel irony) criticized personality trait.

Those advantages range from personal life to work and even public life (yes, really), and can be grown, positively highlighted, used, and enjoyed.

In the category of criticism, the book does not usefully cover the benefit of psychological resilience. Resilience does not mean losing sensitivity, just, being able to also dry one’s tears and weather life’s slings and arrows when the world is harsher than one might like. But for the authors, they have stacked all their chips on “we must make the world a better place”. Which is a noble goal, if not always an immediately attainable one.

Bottom line: if you are more sensitive than average and would like to use that to benefit yourself and those around you, then this is the book for you!

Click here to check out Sensitive, and make the most of your strengths!

First, the elephant in the training room: this book does assume that you want to be thinner, leaner, and stronger. This is the companion book, written for women, to “Bigger, Stronger, Leaner”, which was written for men. Statistically, these assumptions are reasonable, even if the generalizations are imperfect. Also, this reviewer has a gripe with anything selling “thinner”. Leaner was already sufficient, and “stronger” is the key element here, so “thinner” is just marketing, and marketing something that’s often not unhealthy, to sell a book that’s actually full of good advice for building a healthy body.

In other words: don’t judge a book by the cover, however eyeroll-worthy it may be.

The book is broadly aimed at middle-aged readers, but boasts equal worth for young and old alike. If there’s something Matthews knows how to do well in his writing, it’s hedging his bets.

As for what’s in the book: it’s diet and exercise advice, aimed at long-term implementation (i.e. not a crash course, but a lifestyle change), for maximum body composition change results while not doing anything silly (like many extreme short-term courses do) and not compromising other aspects of one’s health, while also not taking up an inordinate amount of time.

The dietary advice is sensible, broadly consistent with what we’d advise here, and/but if you want to maximise your body composition change results, you’re going to need a pocket calculator (or be better than this writer is at mental arithmetic).

The exercise advice is detailed, and a lot more specific than “lift things”; there are programs of specifically how many sets and reps and so forth, and when to increase the weights and when not to.

A strength of this book is that it explains why all those numbers are what they are, instead of just expecting the reader to take on faith that the best for a given exercise is (for example) 3 sets of 8–10 reps of 70–75% of one’s single-rep max for that exercise. Because without the explanation, those numbers would seem very arbitrary indeed, and that wouldn’t help anyone stick with the program. And so on, for any advice he gives.

The style is… A little flashy for this reader’s taste, a little salesy (and yes he does try to upsell to his personal coaching, but really, anything you need is in the book already), but when it comes down to it, all that gym-boy bravado doesn’t take away from the fact his advice is sound and helpful.

Bottom line: if you would like your body to be the three things mentioned in the title, this book can certainly help you get there.

Click here to check out Thinner Leaner Stronger, and become thinner, leaner, stronger!

It’s been well-established in supercentenarian studies that one of the key factors beyond diet or exercise or suchlike (important as those things definitely are), is having a purpose to one’s life.

Neuroscientist Dr. Ken Mogi explains in this very easy-to-read book, how we can bring ikigai into our lives.

From noticing the details of the small things in life, to reorienting one’s life around what’s most truly most important to us, Dr. Mogi gives us not just a “this is ikigai” exposé, but rather, a practical and readily applicable how-to guide.

Bottom line: if you’ve so far been putting off ikigai as “I’ll get to that”, the time to start is today.

Click here to check out Awakening Your Ikigai, and actually awaken yours!