Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport With No Boundaries [Import] [Paperback]

Jon Hotten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2005

A hilarious and somewhat disturbing look at the weird sport of bodybuilding, Muscle is a journey through a land of giants — men who worship at the altar of Arnie.

Bodybuilding is the wildest, weirdest sport in the world, but it is more than just a sport; it’s a whole way of life for the supermen who scale its Olympian heights. In Muscle, John Hotten fights his own unpromising genetics to hitch up with the bodybuilding circus, from London to Las Vegas, Amsterdam to Arnie’s place. As his forbidding subjects open up, confiding their fears and ambitions, he discovers a story of unregulated excess, chemical mayhem and hard-won glory in the pursuit of the perfect pec.

Beginning with the shocking death of Andreas Munzer, a fallen hero with a 58-inch chest and 21-inch arms, and ending with the glitz and drama of the Mr Olympia competition, Muscle hangs out at the gyms and the shows, going head to head with the stars and legends — Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler and the Terminator himself — as well as the casualties, gym rats and iron junkies!

Taking beef as its motif, Muscle is a book for everyone who’s ever looked in the mirror and wanted more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Hotten is the author of Unlicensed: Random Notes from Boxing’s Underbelly.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press (September 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0224069675
• ISBN-13: 978-0224069670
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible, amazing real-life journey through a beefed up world, April 9, 2007

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Fanny Brown Rice (USA! USA! USA!) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport With No Boundaries (Paperback)

I first read an excerpt of this book in the magazine section of a newspaper while visiting England years ago. After that I was looking for the book to come out in the U.S.. When I didn't see it, I ordered it through Amazon. I loved this book. I am a woman, I have no muscles to speak of, and I had no interest in bodybuilding. But Hotten makes the "sport" of growing muscles come alive, and tells the incredible story of these guys getting big, bigger, biggest. What they do to succeed: be it drugs or incredible devotion or usually, a crazy combination of both -- is painted in a way to make it truly fascinating and touching.

Sometimes it's darkly funny (like the fake tan application scenes and dehydrated competitors who actually freeze up and have to be moved off stage like statues) and sometimes tragic (the ones who are permanently injured or die from their pursuit of "perfection"). It also paints a interesting portrait of Schwarzenegger and who he is, where he came from and how many have strived to follow in his footsteps. It's just a great, well-written book for any fan of modern non-fiction.