''The Secret to Superhuman Strength'' is a 2021 graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel. The book has six "positive" reviews and eight "rave" reviews, according to review aggregator Book Marks. In it she chronicles the "exercise epoch" of body building, fitness fads, outdoor sports, and the popularization of Asian martial and healing arts. Describing herself as a "vigorous type" and a bit of an " exercise freak", she analyzes the reasons for this as ranging from "typical stress management" to slightly "perverse fixation on muscles", starting in early childhood seeing advertisements and workout videos by

Charles Atlas Charles Atlas (born Angelo Siciliano; October 30, 1892 – December 24, 1972) was an Italian-born American bodybuilder best remembered as the developer of a bodybuilding method and its associated exercise program which spawned a landmark advert ...

and Jack Lalanne. She admits her "ontological confusion" was induced by "non-stop television watching" typical of the baby boomer / generation x cusp. The book explores the influence of aspirational branding, and advertising athletic and outdoor wear on

body image Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, ps ...

and

gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...

. Bechdel explores the transcendentalist movement of the romantic era and the beatnik era through the relationships of poets and writers of those eras. Bechdel also describes her relationships with her mother, her father, her jobs, and her girlfriends, gurus, and therapists, concluding that "''the only thing to transcend is the idea that there's something to transcend. Nirvana is Samsara''." It was included in several "Best of" publishing awards in 2021, including The Best Graphic Book from '' Publishers Weekly'' and one of '' The New York Times'' Best Graphic Novels.

References

2021 non-fiction books Houghton Mifflin books English-language books {{Nonfiction-book-stub