Author is passionate and exceedingly expert in this field - the one of our lungs and ability to use them to their full extent.
The information is here and fairly accessible but in this genre, a little more personality will be required to take this book to the zenith of readership it deserves. Most folks who are going to pick this up are the arm chair body experts/explorers who’ve had Mary Roach’s humor spoiled on them or even Dr. Walker's lively discussions in his sleep book.
I very much enjoyed the book and appreciate the lifetime of experiences behind it but I think many (American at least) consumers will consider it a bit dry.

Lung health has been interesting to me for years because of my aunt's double lung transplant and also a childhood's friend's battle with cystic fibrosis. This book has a lot of information about our powerful lungs. Thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for allowing me to read and review.

Although this book is for a lay person, it is solidly from a doctor’s perspective and medical terms are used. Han will state what it is more commonly understood, term or condition, then use the medical term going forward. While the sub-title implies a how-to for improving lung heath, it is a bit misleading, as much more is covered.
We start out with the function of the lungs. There’s a chapter on how the lungs develop, which surprisingly isn’t fully established until young adulthood. The bulk of the book is describing the lungs as we understand them, some diseases, and how we don’t have good ways of measuring good lung health. Instead we measure when something is presenting as a problem. There is advice as well.

For good lungs, follow what is often said: don’t smoke, eat a healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, and get exercise. One additional advice that isn’t as commonly mentioned is pay attention to air quality, outside and inside the home. Some chemicals or products can off-gas leaving an unhealthy home.

For the detailed information about the lungs, I found the book informative. I got the sense that research into the lungs is lacing compared to some other aspects to our bodies, and more studies need to be conducted for increased understanding. This isn’t a long book and can be a quick read.

As an asthmatic, I was interested in reading this book. It's quite academic and covers a lot of territory - caring for lungs, historical context, general important knowledge about lungs and breathing. Learned a lot!

A fantastic guide and interesting read! An authoritative, accessible guide to how our lungs work and how to protect them.

Most of us pay little attention to the workings of our lungs, but the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked interest in their functioning and fear about the risks they face. Dr. MeiLan K. Han, a leading pulmonologist and a national spokesperson for the American Lung Association, takes readers on a fascinating tour of this most vital organ.

Han explains the wonder of breathing and reveals how the lungs serve as the body’s first line of defense. She provides a timely overview of the latest scientific thinking about the leading respiratory risks—including indoor and outdoor pollution, smoking and vaping, wildfire smoke, and viruses like SARS-CoV-2—and offers a practical guide to keeping lungs healthy. And with authority as both practitioner and medical researcher, she argues powerfully for a social policy that makes a priority of preserving lung health nationwide.

I feel that books like Breathing Lessons should be mandatory for everyone to read. Even though our healthcare system doesn't always support prevention, especially when it's about lungs, we should be more aware of what we're doing with our lungs, how to take care of them and maybe how we could do some tests privately.

Breathing Lessons give you introduction into how the lungs works, what are the viruses and bacteria that can impact our health and what damage they can cause (which to me was the most fascinating because I love microbiology).

We learn about the most common lung diseases, what's causing them, how we can get a diagnosis and what are the potential treatments.

My dad is a smoker, I'd give anything for him to stop, but he doesn't want to stop... I wish this book was translated to Polish, so I could buy it for him and maybe reading about what smoking might cause would change his mind (especially that he had 3 strokes already by the age of 50!).

Really good and informative. It's written in a simple way so it was perfect for me and will be for majority of population.

This was incredibly interesting. Especially in the times of COVID. Understanding how the lungs work and how to keep them functioning well is something that should be taught to everyone. As someone who had long-hauler COVID symptoms and still struggles occasionally this book offered real solutions for improving lung function instead of vague recommendations. I absolutely recommend this book to those who have had COVID or have a family member who has or if you're interested your biology and how it works.

Dr. MeiLan Han transfers years of knowledge as a lung doctor, or pulmonologist, to the printed word in her upcoming book Breathing Lessons: A Doctor’s Guide to Lung Health. With this book, she offers explanations of many lung-related conditions including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, and many others.

Dr. Han discusses how doctors both observe and test their patients to diagnose lung conditions. Additionally, she explains a variety of treatments. But most importantly, her goal is to explain how to keep our lungs healthy. By breaking it down over the decades of life, Dr. Han shows that lung health truly begins in childhood.

And this isn’t how the medical community traditionally addresses it. Therefore, she seeks to inform patients in the hopes that they will take the reins and request lung-related follow-up.

Paying attention to our lungs throughout our lives also helps us gain better overall health and function as we age. But Dr. Han also realizes many people reading her book need help in the latter decades of their lives. So she addresses that as well.

My conclusions
Dr. Han is clearly a compassionate physician who cares about the state of people’s lungs. She recognizes that lung health is crucial to life, a fact that COVID-19 brought to the forefront. Our breathing capabilities are a vital sign of health or illness. Unfortunately, they’re often minimized or ignored until it’s too late.

She articulates complicated medical conditions with ease and finds a balance between medical jargon and typical layperson terminology. But from a writing perspective, Breathing Lessons felt dry as a bone to me.

I appreciated her historical perspectives on pulmonology. But more patient stories or other illustrations of the medical concepts would help lighten the academic nature of the content. Still, if you need a general lung-related reference with a focus on Western, allopathic medicine, this is a strong entry.

Acknowledgments
Many thanks to NetGalley, W.W. Norton & Company, and the author for a digital advance readers copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Content
This book opens with an introduction which highlights the author’s expertise and sets the upcoming chapters in context. There is a chapter on how the lungs work, then one about viral, bacterial and fungal infections. The third chapter deals with protecting your lungs throughout all of life’s stages. Chapter four describes a lung MOT with a pulmonologist. Chapter 5 provides short guides to several common lungs diseases including asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis and others. The final chapter looks to future solutions.

Style
Dr. Han has a great writing style. She writes simply but accurately, therefore her book is suitable for a general audience. She’s great at clearly explaining the more complex areas so that anyone can understand. Her writing is engaging too, so that even if lung health is not the most exciting area for the reader, she makes it interesting. I personally, am fascinated by respiratory health!

Highlights
There is a lot of information about heart health, diet and brain training. If you go for a GP check-up they will likely look at things like blood pressure, pulse, weight, diet, smoking and alcohol etc. The lungs are comparatively neglected despite being a major organ. Dr Han makes the case that they should be treated with equal importance as our other vital organs. Few people who didn’t have a pre-existing lung condition gave much thought to lung health before the covid pandemic. This is because they didn’t feel they needed to. There are no ‘lung health’ campaigns (other than related to giving up smoking) that we so often see for heart health. Since the pandemic, however, people are interested in how to keep their lungs healthy and survive viral infections such as covid.

For me the highlight chapters were the ones about protecting the lungs and about different lung diseases. I found these the most interesting and appreciated the author’s practical advice. The author goes into very useful detail. For example she talks about the risks of different workplaces from obvious ones like mining and farming to less obvious ones like hairdressing and office work. She describes the nature of the hazard and gives a range of practical steps to reduce it.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to know more about: how the lungs work, improving the health of their lungs or their children’s, managing lung diseases and the future of pulmonology. Well written in accessible and engaging style, suitable for a general readership.

This book is a good resource for someone interested in learning everything about pulmonary anatomy, physiology, lung diseases and treatment with help of prescription medications. I was more interested in alternative methods of treating breathing problems, such as breathing techniques, exercises to improve lung function and disease prevention. Unfortunately author did not include any of that in her book. The book is well written and easy to understand, so even though it did not include subjects I was interested in, I learned some new information, such as damage vaping and e-cigarettes cause and more. Overall this was a good read.

I took a special interest in this book because I have lung issues I wanted to better understand and this book was perfect for it.

Being someone with Asthma and not understanding much about my own lungs, I immediately took an interest in this book! Our author is very knowledgeable, as she breaks down plenty of anatomical processes that fully explain anything you could possibly wonder about lung function, health, diseases, prevention, history and future.

This nonfiction book is short and sweet, packed with so much information, and definitely something new for everyone to learn. I appreciate this book so much, but at some points it did for like an academic reference read. The author explains clinical jargon so that all audiences can learn, but despite this the texts can feel a little dense still. I think some audiences will really love that and others will not.

I overall liked this and learned so much and learned how little we really do know. I can see how popular this one will be especially with Covid raises more curiosity, caution, and awareness - she fulfills that by mentioning Covid in its whole.

It’s the kind of book I want to keep on my shelf so that I can go back and answer questions I might forget. This is academically amazing and informatively amazing - all five star characteristics! I think for me the reading experience was just average because I didn’t know what type of read this would be and I was met with more meat than I could chew. BUT! That’s completely personal. Look out for this one and read it! Even in the first paragraph you learn some fun facts. Would recommend everyone to give it a go! Thank you to NetGalley and Publishers for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Did you know the average person takes over 600 million breaths in their lifetime?

Seeing as how respiration is a largely unconscious process that is regulated in the medulla oblongata, one of the most primitive parts of the brain, you probably didn't. The reason for that is because breathing with ease isn't something many people have to think about. It's a vital biological operation that occurs in the background without anyone having to focus on it, so people tend to take the seemingly "effortless" vitality of the lungs for granted as a result.

That is...until they experience problems that effect their ability to breathe well themselves and panic.

As someone who has lived with moderate asthma for much of my life, and has suffered from both chronic and acute lung exacerbations over the years, I've been there. It sucks. Nobody wants to know what it feels like to choke on air they can't seem to catch. To wheeze. To cough and cough and cough. To have their chest fill with sharp, restrictive fire every time their body encounters another allergen or sneaky little pathogen it doesn't like. No one wants to experience the physiological terrors that are involved in breathing difficulties, no one.

Lung problems and disease are a lot more prevalent nationwide than we may know let alone realize, however. On the whole they remain poorly understood. They can be left undiagnosed or unrecognized until the late stages, too. One of the reasons for this is because doctor's offices don't measure lung function regularly like they do blood pressure or heart rate - which seems insane, almost negligent, when you consider that being able to breathe is imperative to staying alive, right? - and also because the money that is invested in lung research isn't proportionate to the number of patients who are living with lung disease. That means there isn't enough data out there yet to tell a cohesive story or pattern about those who already are or someday could be afflicted. There's so much more out there still to be discovered, studied, experimented, and used for treatment.

I appreciated how this book provided insight into the importance of lung function, lung diagnostics, and overall lung health. It was informative and absorbing. Easily comprehensible for those of us who are neither medical practitioners nor pulmonologists.

The author started off by taking readers through a brief overview of how the lungs work and why. Then she discussed how things like smoking, pollution, vaping, and viruses like influenza or Covid-19 can pose severe respiratory risks. After that, she offered practical suggestions for how to keep the lungs healthy (even if they're diseased) and proposed a kind social intervention that will make the preservation of lung health a priority in medicine.

Breathing is vital to life, to living, so really...why isn't it one already? Better yet, how come it hasn't been one long before now?

Asthma suffer or not, I've never stopped to ask myself those questions before reading this book, but I'm asking them now. I'm encouraging you to ask them, too. What more can I say? I'm with Dr. Han, I think it's time we all knew more about the in's and out's of breathing.

Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton and Company for the ARC in exchange for my review.

A fascinating look at how the lungs work, lung disorders, treatments, and the importance of lung health. I loved that this book was written by a pulmonologist who offered insight into how pulmonologists go about diagnosing their patients. As an asthmatic I especially appreciated the steps one can take in order to preserve lung health. This book was very accessible to the average person so I never felt bogged down by medical jargon. This book was very well done.