Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport with No Boundaries - Softcover

Hotten, Jon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224069675 ISBN 13: 9780224069670

Publisher: Yellow Jersey, 2005

Synopsis

Bodybuilding is the wildest, wierdest sport in the world, but it's more than just a sport. It's a whole way of life for the supermen who scale its Olympian heights. Muscle is a journey through a land of giants, men for whom life is given meaning by the pursuit of the perfect pec and who worship at the shrine of Schwartzenegger.

Jon Hotten has a 40-inch chest and 12-inch arms. Undaunted, he fights his unpromising genetics to hitch up with the bodybuilding circus, hanging out with the stars and legends, the casualties, gym rats and iron junkies. As his forbidding subjects open up, he discovers a story of unregulated excess, chemical mayhem and hard-won glory, a story for anyone who's ever looked in the mirror and wanted more...

About this title

Review:

"Is there not something heroic in the single-minded pursuit of the maximally developed human body? Jon Hotten's superb book offers some answers" (Steven Poole The Guardian)

"When it isn’t alarming, [it’s] merely amazing... Balanced, respectful, non-judgmental and rendered in an admirably muscular, entirely fat-free prose" (Giles Smith The Times)

"A compelling and often alarming through the darker side of gym culture" (Time Out)

"A compelling piece of reportage" (Daily Telegraph)

"Like a hardboiled detective story... The first must-buy book on its subject" (Men's Health)

From the Publisher:

Jon Hotten journeys deep into domain of bodybuilding, meeting ab obsessives, 'roid boys, and other equally bizarre characters in a book that offers an hilarious and at times disturbing insight into the world's weirdest sport.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yellow Jersey
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0224069675
• ISBN 13: 9780224069670
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288