This a highly readable treasure trove of asthma information and more significantly on the Buteyko interpretation of asthma as being due to hyperventilation, which can be remedied by awareness and simple exercises so that the asthma "goes away". This leads to the obvious corollary that interpretation as a "feedback-free" blockage of the airways will lead to a worsening of the disease, if the only remedy is assumed to be medication. Ms. Hale shows that the habit-correcting approach, although sounding old-fashioned and even unscientific to some, can be incorporated in a modern lifestyle easily and effectively instead of control by medication. Whether or not the reader (like myself) accepts the Buteyko theory of asthma, he will be able to avail himself of a mass of critical information on the use of steroids, on the peakflow meter (and its tendency to cause bronchoconstriction) and on diets. Maybe the main thrust of the book is to humanely restore a certain degree of pressure on the asthmatic to control (and even cure) his disease as in the past when there was less asthma about and approaches were different. Let us hope that the popularity of the Buteyko method will lead to more scientific research being done on it in conventional institutions.