Athena, Holding Your Hair, Whispering In Your Ear

For me a few are enough, one is enough, none is enough. This is not for the many, but for you. We are audience enough for each other.

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This is a book about longevity and the science of aging, but if you're looking for practical information about improving life and healthspan this book is of limited value.

The first two sections of the book outline the author's theories on the bio-mechanics of aging, followed by a brief sketch of some potentially promising longevity interventions. There's some good discussion of the state of the science and the scientific literature, presented in a fairly approachable way. However, the discussion of possible interventions is very high-level and handwavey. The actionable information could fit on five or six pages and doesn't even really capture the state of the available science in many cases (e.g. the discussion of heat and cold exposure was woefully underdeveloped). So the first part of the book delivered what it said on the tin, but just barely. The author is a solid writer and communicator and does give an (admittedly sparse) overview of the subject. I just can't imagine that there aren't better books on this subject out there.

The third section of the book is a lengthy philosophical defense of the idea of curing aging, which I'm sure is of interest to the author, but is of very limited interest to me. This is especially the case because his approach to the question is sophomoric and underdeveloped (I'm sympathetic to his conclusion, but his arguments are poor). And even if the argumentation was airtight, it seems out of scope for a book that's ostensibly about the science of aging, especially given the summary nature of some of the actual scientific discussion earlier in the book.

In short, I can't recommend anyone buy this book, although if you're very interested in the subject and have access to a copy for free, it's probably worth reading the second section of the book to get a quick view of some scientifically promising longevity interventions. It might also be worth reading the first section as well if you're looking for a general orientation to longevity science.