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Muscle
At age 26, scrawny, Oxford-educated Samuel Fussell entered a YMCA gym in New York to escape the terrors of big city life. Four years and 80 lbs. of firm, bulging muscle later, he was competing for bodybuilding titles in the "Iron Mecca" of Southern California-so weak from intense training and starvation he could barely walk. MUSCLE is the harrowing, often hilarious chronicle of Fussell's divine obsession, his search for identity in a bizarre, eccentric world of "health fascists," "gym bunnies" and "muscleheads"-and his devout, single-minded acceptance of illness, pain, nausea, and steroid-induced rage in his quest for the holy grail of physical perfection.
Class
This book describes the living-room artifacts, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from top to bottom.
Samuel Johnson
The first new biography for a generation of one of the great figures of English literature Poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer, critic, conversationalist and wit, Dr Johnson is one of the great figures of English literature, perhaps the most quoted English writer after Shakespeare. Our view of Johnson has been overwhelmingly shaped by James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791, the most famous biography in the English language. But invaluable as Boswell is as a source, he should not be the last word. This new biography illuminates the Johnson that Boswell never knew: the awkward youth, the unsuccessful schoolmaster, the eccentric marriage, his early years in London in th...
Bodybuilders Never Die
The extraordinary story of a skinny lad from Manchester who rose to become British Champion bodybuilder. And there the clichés end in this gritty, humorous, and brutally honest tale which strips away the dream tan and any illusion of a glamorous lifestyle to lay bare the sport as never before. Jim Moore writes about the all-too-often taboo subjects of performance-enhancing drugs, the debilitating illnesses and mental health problems which blight the scene. He takes the reader behind the stage curtain to reveal the murky depths to which some--including himself--will plunge in search of success. Moore reveals the shocking contradictions and dangers inherent in the bread-and-butter running of the sport, matched only by the intensity and insanity of his own dedication. It was this never-say-die approach which eventually saw Moore crowned a national champion five times; but also an attitude which ultimately almost caused his death.
Muscle
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...
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters tells nothing less than the story of how the modern, Western view of the world was born. Cultural and intellectual historian Anthony Pagden explains how, and why, the ideal of a universal, global, and cosmopolitan society became such a central part of the Western imagination in the ferment of the Enlightenment - and how these ideas have done battle with an inward-looking, tradition-oriented view of the world ever since. Cosmopolitanism is an ancient creed; but in its modern form it was a creature of the Enlightenment attempt to create a new 'science of man', based upon a vision of humanity made up of autonomous individuals, free from all the constra...
Bodymakers
Women with muscles are a recent phenomenon. While generating a good deal of interest, both positive and negative, their importance to the cultural landscape has yet to be acknowledged. Leslie Heywood looks at female body building as a metaphor for how women fare in our current political and cultural climate. BODYMAKERS reveals how female bodybuilders find themselves both trapped and empowered by their sport. 14 illustrations.
Arnold
"Arnold: Schwarzenegger and the Movies" is the first comprehensive, in-depth book to examine one of modern cinema's most celebrated and divisive screen presences. Tracing Schwarzenegger's entire film career and life from teenage bodybuilder to Governor of California, Saunders blends close textual readings of the major films, including "Pumping Iron", "Conan the Barbarian", The "Terminator" series, "Twins" and "True Lies", with salient historical context and biographical detail, demonstrating continually the importance of broader social and political factors in defining Arnold's unique significance. Representing far more than just a muscular spectacle, Saunders argues, Schwarzenegger found powerful ideological and spiritual relevance to his age by embarking on a quest to restore collective faith in his adopted nation - and, moreover, by exploiting his own, mythic importance to a post-war America struggling to come to terms with its own contemporary narrative.
Dorian Yates
FROM THE SHADOW is the story of a country boy who endured a series of tragic events, leaving him alone in a big city. The cruel hand of fate had one more blow: a young offenders' institution. There, in his darkest hour, it would be the bars he lifted, not those that bound him, which would finally change the trajectory of his life - forever.Dorian Yates' disarming honesty would lead to a reader of an early manuscript saying of FROM THE SHADOW, "I had to force myself to put it down -- the thought of finishing it, of the most real thing I'd ever read coming to an end, was unbearable.
