study of athletic performance.”

up to speed due to anti-trans comments. Williams doesn’t prove her thesis, but this chapter is where she gets closest to it.

A book that fails in its ambition but still offers some provocative nuggets.

THE POWER OF TREES How Ancient Forests Can Save Us If We Let Them

Wohlleben, Peter

Trans. by Jane Billinghurst Greystone Books (280 pp.)

$27.95 | May 2, 2023

9781771647748

The author of The Hidden Life of Trees returns with a book that shows how trees help each other and us.

A highly experienced German forest manager with keen insight, Wohlleben persuasively describes the beauty, complexity, and resilience of natural forests versus the planted monospecies “plantations” dominating Germany’s arboreal landscapes. Illustrating for lay readers the work of Suzanne Simard, the pioneering ecologist who demonstrated the remarkable ability of trees to communicate via networks of roots and fungi, Wohlleben shows us how trees thrive in diverse, untamed communities—and how vulnerable they become when isolated from other trees. “Trees…are not life-forms that stand there and suffer as human activity changes the global climate,” he writes. “Rather, they are creatures rooted in their environments that react when conditions threaten to get out of control.” The author is less persuasive in his claim forests cannot be “managed” to thrive while being culled for considerable amounts of wood (the most sustainable large-scale building material, as it can sequester carbon while steel and concrete emit it). Wohlleben contends that it is “impossible to extract raw materials in a way that benefits nature”; that German forest-industry politics would get in the way even if it were possible; that wood doesn’t last long, anyway. However, his sourcing is thin, as it has occasionally been in earlier books. Research increasingly shows fire-resistant engineered timbers are hardy. Indeed, a paper by a global team of researchers, calculating that “engineered timber” cities may sequester climate-saving amounts of carbon, is being cited by officials from the United Nations to the European Union. Many agree with Wohlleben that trees are a key weapon in the war against climate change, but many also contend that wood can be safely drafted into the war—that humans, like trees, can collaborate with nature.

Good introductory reading for those interested in the role of trees—and wood—in climate change.

Up To Speed

The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes

Yu, Christine Riverhead (336 pp.)

$28.00 | May 16, 2023

9780593332399

How to nurture women athletes. Based on scientific papers and more than 140 interviews with athletes, parents, coaches, and researchers, this book by sports and health journalist Yu, who is also an athlete and yoga teacher, takes a close look at the challenges faced by women in sports, where their performance, training, and needs have long been assessed against norms and data gathered from men. Historically, women were discouraged from participating in athletics, believed to be inherently physically inferior to men. Moreover, they were told by doctors and teachers that they risked harming their reproductive systems if they invested their energy in sports. Even after women became increasingly engaged in athletics, sports science focused on men, whose bodies set standards for nutrition, endurance, treating injuries, and even designing gear and clothing. Clothing manufacturers, for example, came late to offering a range of sports bras that provided comfort and support. The onus, therefore, has been “placed on women to overcome the obstacles inherent in a system that was rigged against them from the get-go.” With more women involved in research in the 1980s, though, the focus has shifted, revealing surprising information on their abilities and potential, such as the impact of women’s menstrual cycle on performance; their nutritional needs and risk of undernutrition; and their aerobic capacity, muscle endurance, and ability to metabolize fat that gives them an advantage in sports such as distance running. Yu addresses three stages in women’s lives during which profound physical changes must be acknowledged: adolescence, pregnancy and the postpartum period, and menopause. Muscular, skeletal, hormonal, and psychological changes during adolescence, for example, should factor into a girl’s training regimen, which too often emphasizes early specialization. More informed guidance by coaches and intervention by nutritionists might keep girls from dropping out in discouragement. Yu urges more research and awareness of the scientific evidence that has emerged to “celebrate women’s unique abilities.”

A brisk, well-researched study of athletic performance.

BOYSLUT A Memoir and Manifesto

Zane, Zachary

Abrams Image (240 pp.)

$26.00 | May 9, 2023

9781419764714

The sex and relationship columnist for Men’s Health explores his erotic identity in a series of spicy biographical vignettes.

Though Zane was raised in a liberal, queer-affirming household, he “still struggled with being bisexual, polyamorous, and horny all the time.” He reveals a consistent struggle with OCD and extensively discusses his burgeoning same-sex desires while at Vassar, boosted by the “powdered courage” of cocaine. The author succeeds at candidly detailing and measuring the value of his sexual exploits. These episodes interplay nicely with perspectives on pornography, rejection theories, the pros and cons of gay hookup apps, and the unabashed promotion of intensive psychotherapy for readers to “delve deep, tackling the root of your shame and insecurities.” For neophytes, Zane provides an enlightening glossary of common and lesser-known sexual terminology—e.g., fraysexual, someone who “experiences sexual attraction toward those they are not deeply connected with and loses attraction as they get to know an individual.” He also vividly describes a polyamorous relationship involving his then-boyfriend, the boyfriend’s wife, and her girlfriend. In his time writing a sex advice column, Zane came to believe that most men “do not have a healthy relationship with sex at all” and are “continuously failing to navigate their sexuality, masculinity, and romantic relationships.” These pointed perspectives stem from stories shared with him as well as his own vast carnal experiences as a liberated, “sexually shameless” man boasting over 2,000 sexual encounters. Zane seeks to dispel preconceived notions about bisexuality and alleviate the pervasiveness of sex-negative shame and stigma, but the author’s more serious notes on sexual liberation sometimes get lost amid chapters detailing his rampant promiscuity. The book works best when enjoyed as a chronicle of Zane’s unapologetically salacious history and the lessons he’s learned. His emphatic discourses on erotic liberation, the misunderstood bisexual community, and overcoming sexual shame are credible and noteworthy, but they are often overshadowed.

A provocative, uneven confessional from a self-avowed “slutty antihero.”

SKY ABOVE KHARKIV Dispatches From the Ukrainian Front

Zhadan, Serhiy

Trans. by Reilly Costigan-Humes & Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler

Yale Univ. (208 pp.)

$26.00 | May 16, 2023

9780300270860

A Ukrainian poet shares the resilient response by Kharkiv citizens and resistance by the armed forces over the first months of Russian bombardment.

By turns defiant, sentimental, and improbably optimistic, these dispatches, which comprise an installment in the publisher’s Margellos World Republic of Letters series, were posted on social media from the beginning of Russia’s invasion through June. Collectively, they bring a visceral sense of what the people of Kharkiv and Ukrainians in general have been enduring. Poet and musician Zhadan and his band, Zhadan and the Dogs, traveled the city to deliver humanitarian supplies and sometimes organize impromptu concerts in order to maintain morale. His daily reports praise the citizens’ sense of bravery in the face of the sudden Russian military onslaught; he also lauds their lack of panic and the work by the Territorial Defense Forces. As he chronicles his visits to volunteer units, checkpoints, stores, hospitals, schools, and subway stations where people were living, especially children, Zhadan interjects resentment of Russian attempts at subjugation, especially the suppression of the Ukrainian language. He argues that the great “culture of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy” masks a contempt for Ukrainian identity, and he reflects on Ukrainian linguist George Shevelov’s writings during World War II as well as the work of national Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Zhadan shows how eight years of aggression by Russia have led to a stronger Ukrainian resistance and how the Russian propaganda attempts at “denazification” and demilitarization of the country have only strengthened Ukrainian resolve. “We simply cannot afford to lose,” he writes. “We have to crush our enemy and liberate our territory.” Curiously, the author doesn’t mention President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his nightly addresses to the nation or his international campaign for support.

A vivid, in-the-trenches report from a Ukrainian city and its “injured, yet unbreakable” citizens.

These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

OH NO, THE AUNTS ARE HERE Rex, Adam Illus. by Lian Cho Chronicle Books (40 pp.) $16.99 | May 23, 2023 978-1-79720-794-0