Crooked

April 17, 2017
Veteran journalist Ramin (Carved in Sand) spent six years researching her latest topic, conducting 600 interviews for this comprehensive investigation. She also personally explored a number of back-pain solutions—as human lab rat, the author took notes while being examined in her underwear (a first, she observes, “in over three decades as an investigative reporter”) and observed disc surgery while cloaked in scrubs. Although she experienced chronic back pain herself, her personal story isn’t shared until chapter 10; the book’s first half is instead a riveting exposé of the back-pain industry, critiquing such common treatments as lumbar spinal fusion, epidural spinal injections, and opioid prescription. Though Ramin asserts that she knew very little about the back-pain industry when she began her research, she soon realized that she was delving into a checkered subject with “twists, turns and corrupt characters” worthy of a Le Carré novel. Ramin offers two approaches to her text: readers may begin with a chronological study of various medical techniques and their efficacy (or lack thereof), or they may jump into part two (“Solutions”) first, where they will encounter a much more optimistic exploration of back rehabilitation, exercise, Iyengar yoga, tai chi, and other nonoperative approaches. This book will be of particular interest to back-pain sufferers and health care professionals. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management.

April 1, 2017
Investigative reporter Ramin interviewed 600 people over the course of six years for this thoroughly reported first-person take on the back-pain industry. Her overall message? Buyer beware! Remember that every stakeholder wants and needs your business. Back pain costs the country $100 billion a year. How did this happen? For starters, adults in the U.S. typically spend nearly nine hours a day in a seated position, and this sedentary lifestyle is a recipe for trouble. People who end up with back pain often fail to embrace inexpensive, noninvasive treatments, such as doing physical therapy exercises at home. Instead, they turn to costly spinal-fusion surgeries and cutting-edge procedures advertised online and on TV. Some people overuse pain medications, ending up hooked on opioids. This cautionary book ends on a high note with the once-hobbled-by-back-pain author standing up straight and hiking a 13,000-foot trail in the Peruvian Andes. In one of the longest list of names ever to appear in an acknowledgments section, Ramin thanks her dog. The pooch's insistence on walks every two hours, Ramin writes, helped save her back.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)