A review by creativerunnings
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky

5.0

This book is so very good despite it being so very long. Most books mention stress as this bad thing that causes all kinds of ailments, but Robert Sapolsky really goes onto depth and explains the biological mechanisms behind a variety of things that are related to stress, and he does it well scientifically. On top of this feat, he's also a great writer with the talent of making an expository text interesting and hard to put down. Think Bill Bryson but add a ton of scientific rigor. This is astounding - a balancing act of making the text entertaining while keeping it at a high scientific standard is difficult to pull off. Plus, as a scientist myself, I'm normally not interested in reading about science - either it's not rigorous enough, or it's too academic for my leisure time given I already deal with this stuff for work. I also liked that the author was modest, seemingly not an uberego, which as a lady in academia is appreciated - especially at Stanford, where I encountered way too many of these egomaniacs!