“Literary… gorgeous… rigorously researched.”
-Mary Roach, author of Stiff, Gulp, and Fuzz
“her book is about being alive.”
-Frank Bruni, author of The Beauty of Dusk
"a joyfully careening tale about something we all take for granted.”
-Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run
“Bonnie tsui is a poet of physicality.”
-Peggy Orenstein, author of Girls & Sex and Boys & Sex
“Remarkable… truly moving.”
-Ed Yong, author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes
In On Muscle, Bonnie Tsui brings her signature blend of science, culture, immersive reporting, and personal narrative to examine not just what muscles are but what they mean to us. Cardiac, smooth, skeletal—these three different types of muscle in our bodies make our hearts beat; push food through our intestines, blood through our vessels, babies out the uterus; attach to our bones and allow for motion. Tsui also traces how muscles have defined beauty—and how they have distorted it—through the ages, and how they play an essential role in our physical and mental health.
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 brain-body connection. Woven throughout are stories of Tsui’s childhood with her Chinese immigrant artist dad—a black belt in karate—who schools her from a young age in a kind of quirky, in-house Muscle Academy. On Muscle shows us the poetry in the physical, and the surprising ways muscle can reveal what we’re capable of.
Algonquin Books, April 2025
Early Praise for On Muscle:
“Bonnie Tsui’s beautiful and entertaining storytelling made me forget I was absorbing essential knowledge. On Muscle left me with a new appreciation for the mind-body connection and a better understanding of my place in the world.”
Des Linden, Boston Marathon champion and New York Times bestselling author of Choosing to Run
“Bonnie Tsui has done something remarkable. Fusing science writing, memoir, and essay, she has written a singular book about the true meanings of strength and flexibility, about our ability to define who we are and who we might be, and about what muscle means to the kind of people who rarely feature in stereotypical stories of strength and fitness. On Muscle is a truly moving ode to the tissues that move us.”
Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes
“Bonnie Tsui writes with uncommon elegance and warmth—about muscle, yes, but more than that, about movement and joy and the gorgeous, often surprising ways they entwine. On Muscle is literary and deeply personal, but also rigorously researched and powerfully inspiring. It made me want to run, jump, grab my bike, any one of which I would have done had I not at the same time been unable to stop reading.”
Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff, Gulp, and Fuzz
“Only a seriously skilled storyweaver like Bonnie Tsui can combine science, sociology, and personal experience into a joyfully careening tale about something we all take for granted but none of us really understands. The genius of On Muscle is showing not only how physical strength animates our bodies, but every other aspect of life as well. You’re about to learn more about yourself and your world than you could ever imagine.“
Christopher McDougall, New York Times bestselling author of Born to Run
“Bonnie Tsui is a poet of physicality, and this book is an ode—one that explores our literal and metaphoric hearts. It is muscle as memory, muscle as meaning, muscle as magic. I am, in all ways, stronger for reading it.”
Peggy Orenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Girls & Sex and Boys & Sex
“Beautifully written and so very smartly conceived, On Muscle takes you places that you expect it to and places that you don’t. It’s like Bonnie Tsui’s splendid Why We Swim that way. Yes, there are bodybuilders and barbells in these pages, but Tsui is more concerned with the meaning of strength, the interplay of brain and brawn, and the importance and glory of motion in life. Her book is about being alive.”
Frank Bruni, New York Times bestselling author of The Beauty of Dusk and The Age of Grievance