BUY BOOKS BY AMY ALKON
Award-winning investigative science writer AMY ALKON busts medical myths and empowers you through science across disciplines for your best health and boldest life.
GOING MENOPOSTAL “is a rigorous and meticulous guide to everything related to menopause. … Alkon does a tremendous job of breaking down scientific facts for everyday readers. … Her smart, thoughtful accounts of her own experiences lend a feeling of camaraderie to the book.”
GOING MENOPOSTAL: What you (and your doctor) need to know about the real science of menopause and perimenopause
Foreword by Robert Lufkin, MD, NYT bestselling author of LIES I Taught In Medical School
Half of the population—the female half—is getting healthcare based on medical myth rather than evidence. Going Menopostal is Amy Alkon’s mission to change that.
This book started with a flash—Alkon’s first hot flash. Drenching night sweats, insomnia, and brain fog soon followed—along with shame at feeling bewilderingly enraged at everyone and everything. Alkon, an award-winning science columnist and author, wanted to turn to her doctor. But there was a problem: More than half of the medical care we get in the US may not be “based on, or supported by, adequate evidence,” according to the US National Academy of Medicine.
Knowing this, Alkon began a deep dive into the research on menopause and perimenopause––the 3 to 10 years leading up to menopause when women’s symptoms are widely ignored, dismissed, and misdiagnosed (despite doctors having every intention of helping their patients). She was shocked by what she found:
Most gynecology departments lack even one doctor with training and expertise in menopausal and perimenopausal medicine, and they expect their maternity and general reproductive health specialists to treat these conditions outside their scope of practice without informing patients––a violation of medical ethics.
Perimenopause is wrongly viewed and treated as “menopause lite”––a time of lowered estrogen levels––when estrogen levels actually soar, making many women miserably symptomatic.
Few doctors know that symptomatic perimenopausal women actually tend to lack progesterone, and that replacing it with safe, FDA-approved progesterone would alleviate their insomnia, hot flashes, and other suffering and counteract cell overgrowth that can lead to breast and endometrial cancer.
Many doctors deny estrogen to their menopausal patients, unaware of current research showing that estrogen not only alleviates symptoms but protects against cardiovascular disease (soon to kill 1 in 3 women), bone fractures, metabolic syndrome, and more.
Findings from studies done largely on middle-class white women are wrongly applied to black women and other women of color, ignoring crucial differences, such as generally lower triglyceride levels in black women that can make heart disease harder to detect.
This meticulously researched book is written in clear, everyday language that you don’t need the slightest science background to understand (along with Alkon’s signature dark humor). Alkon equips you with the exact words to confidently ask critical questions and motivate your doctor to partner with you and treat you appropriately––instead of giving you the “treatment” her favorite bus driver got: told by her doctor to “just wait out” her raging insomnia, night sweats, and hot flashes. Alkon’s ultimate goal: Empowering all women with the science and strategies they need to get the evidence-based care they expect and deserve.
DISCLOSURE: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”
UNF*CKOLOGY: How to live with guts and confidence
Amy Alkon presents Unf*ckology, a “science-help” book that knocks the self-help genre on its unscientific ass. You can finally stop fear from being your boss and put an end to your lifelong social suckage.
Have you spent your life shrinking from opportunities you were dying to seize but feel “that’s just who I am”? Well, screw that! You actually can change, and it doesn’t take exceptional intelligence or a therapist who’s looking forward to finally buying Aruba after decades of listening to you yammer on.
Transforming yourself takes revolutionary science-help from Amy Alkon, who has spent the past 20 years translating cutting-edge behavioral science into highly practical advice in her award-winning syndicated column. In Unf*ckology, Alkon pulls together findings from neuroscience, behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and clinical psychology. She explains everything in language you won’t need a psych prof on speed-dial to understand―and with the biting dark humor that made Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck such a great read. She debunks widely-accepted but scientifically unsupported notions about self-esteem, shame, willpower, and more and demonstrates that:
• Thinking your way into changing (as so many therapists and self-help books advise) is the most inefficient way to go about it.
• The mind is bigger than the brain, meaning that your body and your behavior are your gym for turning yourself into the new, confident you.
• Fear is not just the problem; it’s also the solution.
• By targeting your fears with behavior, you make changes in your brain that reshape your habitual ways of behaving and the emotions that go with them.
Follow Amy Alkon's groundbreaking advice in Unf*ckology, and eventually, you’ll no longer need to act like the new you; you’ll become the new you. And how totally f*cking cool is that?
GOOD MANNERS for NICE PEOPLE Who Sometimes Say FUCK
“Miss Manners with Fangs.” ―LA Weekly
We live in a world that's very different from the one in which Emily Post came of age. Many of us who are nice (but who also sometimes say "f*ck") are frequently at a loss for guidelines about how to be a good person who deals effectively with the increasing onslaught of rudeness we all encounter.
To lead us out of the miasma of modern mannerlessness, science-based and bitingly funny syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon rips the doily off the manners genre and gives us a new set of rules for our twenty-first century lives.
With wit, style, and a dash of snark, Alkon explains that we now live in societies too big for our brains, lacking the constraints on bad behavior that we had in the small bands we evolved in. Alkon shows us how we can reimpose those constraints, how we can avoid being one of the rude, and how to stand up to those who are.
Foregoing prissy advice on which utensil to use, Alkon answers the twenty-first century's most burning questions about manners, including:
* Why do many people, especially those under forty, now find spontaneous phone calls rude?
* What can you tape to your mailbox to stop dog walkers from letting their pooch violate your lawn?
* How do you shut up the guy in the pharmacy line with his cellphone on speaker?
* What small gift to your new neighbors might make them think twice about playing Metallica at 3 a.m.?
Combining science with more than a touch of humor, Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck is destined to give good old Emily a shove off the etiquette shelf (if that's not too rude to say).
I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman’s battle to beat some manners into impolite society
“This crazy redhead is on to something. Her pink Rambler story alone is worth the price of the book.” -Elmore Leonard
”Amy Alkon is intellectually promiscuous—and funny as hell.” -Paleopsychologist Howard Bloom, author of The Lucifer Principle
We all just suck it up every day. You leave the house for a latte and
somebody'll flip you the bird on your way and force their loud cellphone
conversation on you once you're there.
It doesn't have to be that way, says award-winning syndicated columnist
Amy Alkon. Her hilarious stories of in-your-face encounters with rude
people and businesses will inspire you to stand up to the boors in your
own world.
Alkon not only gives the offenders a taste of their own medicine, she
delves into anthropology, psychology, and behavioral science to figure
out why we're rude and how we can stop all the intruding, shoving, and
shouting. She ensures that all these rude people get their comeuppance:
Lax parents
Internet bullies
Rude drivers
Negligent businesses
Telemarketing executives
Car thieves
Parking space hogs
That loud jerk in the drugstore line
In this funny, ferocious and freewheeling expose, Alkon gives you the
tools you need to confront these abusers and restore common courtesy,
respect and good manners to society...one chastened cellphone shouter at
a time.
MEANGIRLOLOGY: How to protect yourself from sneak attacks and social ruin
Lessons from the evolutionary psychology of female competition
(Foreword by Jaimie Arona Krems, Ph.D.)
Rumors. Veiled put-downs. Back-handed compliments. Sneaky attacks that are hard to pinpoint as attacks. Why do women do this to each other?
If you’re looking for someone or something to blame, look no further. The culprit is our own DNA. We might be living in a modern world, but we are still driven by ancestral-era psychology, so these tactics remain with us today.
In this curated collection of science-based columns from award-winning writer Amy Alkon, you’ll take a deep dive into the inner workings of female friendship, the methods women use to fight dirty, and the murky nature of the “frenemy.” What comes across as cattiness is actually evolutionary psychology at work. What appears to be an insult is mate competition in disguise.
In Meangirlology, Alkon expertly guides you through the findings of renowned psychologists such as Anne Campbell, Joyce Benenson, Jaimie Arona Krems, and Tania Reynolds to help prepare you for the sneak attacks you don’t see coming from “the gentler sex.”
By being aware of the evolved motivation for women to compete this way, we can spot the frenemies in our midst, deter attacks on ourselves, and be better friends to other women—and have more meaningful, satisfying female friendships.
FREE ADVICE: The Advice Ladies on Love, Dating, Sex, and Relationships
It all started in a Manhattan diner. A lovelorn waiter sought advice from the three sassy women he was serving—and The Advice Ladies were born. Inspired by their success with the young man, they set up a table on a street corner in Soho and began to offer their expert advice services to strangers—free of charge! Soon advice seekers came in droves asking anything and everything about romance. Hilariously captured in Free Advice, The Advice Ladies offer their pearls of wisdom on these and other subjects:
• Love & Dating (also Marriage)
• Getting Rid of Your Jerk
• Wardrobe & Makeovers
• Proper Etiquette
• Wigs & Beards
• The Personals
• Meeting People
• Entertaining
• New Identities
• Cheap Dates
• Recessionary Lifestyles
• Jealousy
• Talking to Strangers
• Office Romance
• Getting Dumped
• Staging a Seduction
• Conflict Management
• Personal Merchandising
• Negativity Lessons (Learning to Say “No”)
From their confidential files, their personal experiences, and their unfailing insight, Amy, Caroline, and Marlowe show everyone how to bypass years of therapy and attack their problems head-on.