This book was extremely interesting!

Few books convince me of their theory, but this one got me not only to believe the thesis, but to change my mind on a few concepts I believed before. The theory is that loneliness and other forms of stress cause heart disease.

“Loneliness” is a topic covered at length by many pundits, but usually from a psychosocial perspective. This book gives hard evidence of “medical consequences” of loneliness, and, equally interesting, lack of education. The consequences are surprisingly large.

The book is well written and was thoroughly enjoyable, and deserves a place in popular consciousness.

The book isn’t perfect. The final segment trips over itself trying to reconcile the fact that blood pressure can skyrocket while talking, which seems to contradict the theme of the book that social connection is important for our health. I do believe these facts can work together but there is a more eloquent explanation that the book just failed to achieve.

Nonetheless, very good, and I highly recommend it.