ON MUSCLE: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters

On the heels of her bestselling book Why We Swim, Bonnie Tsui returns with a mind-expanding exploration of muscle. With Tsui’s signature blend of immersive reporting, cultural exploration, and personal narrative, ON MUSCLE: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters brings readers right into the fascinating world of muscle—not just what they are but also what they mean to us. It’s a beautifully crafted ode to the cardiac, smooth, and skeletal muscles that make our hearts beat; push food through our intestines, blood through our vessels, babies out the uterus; attach to our bones and allow for glorious motion.

ON MUSCLE takes readers on a journey across the globe to understand the cultural significance of muscle, tracing its impact on beauty standards and societal expectations. 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 mind-body connection. Through captivating storytelling, personal anecdotes, and interviews with experts, Tsui illustrates how muscles have shaped our understanding of strength, power, and the human form.

Bonnie Tsui is a longtime contributor to The New York Times and the bestselling author of Why We Swim. 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.

Rachel Levin is a San Francisco journalist who has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Outside. She is the author of LOOK BIG, a book about the often fraught coexistence of animals and humans, and the coauthor of two cookbooks, EAT SOMETHING and STEAMED—the latter of which, as NPR’s “All Things Considered” put it, helps cooks “pound, grate, and shred their feelings about the state of the world.” Her children’s book, WHO ATE WHAT?, was published last year by Phaidon. She has a borderline obsessive running habit but has lately also started lifting weights— only because Bonnie said she should.

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