- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Bond Street Books (Aug 16 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385661150
- ISBN-13: 978-0385661157
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.2 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #928,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Leith is a binger: when he starts eating, he can't stop—and he wants to know why. This question, and an interview with Dr. Atkins, leads him to explore fad diets, unhealthy food production and the ubiquitous media depictions of "perfect" human physiques. While some of British journalist Leith's facts have been reported elsewhere, his humorous anecdotes, compelling interviews and sobering statistics provide convincing arguments against processed foods, government nutritional requirements and other evils of the food chain. In his fast-paced, stream-of-conscious style, Leith molds a journalistic exposé, a food journal and a memoir into the personal exploration of a man consumed by a consuming society. Though he hardly exercises, the 236-pound Leith embarks on the Atkins diet to great success, but in the process realizes that denying himself carbohydrates brings up issues that go beyond his diet. Hungry for answers, he starts seeing a therapist, who suggests that he eats compulsively because he has "been running away from emotions." Leith's ups and downs will ring true for anyone who has tried to lose a significant amount of weight, and the revelations that come out of Leith's therapy sessions will undoubtedly have readers asking why they really want that doughnut.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
The author, a journalist who writes about diet and health, has always had problems with his weight. As the book opens, he confesses to being hopelessly addicted to food and unable to do anything about it (the image of Leith, in a feeding frenzy, scarfing down partly toasted bread is unforgettable). Then he realizes that his upcoming interview with Dr. Robert Atkins--he of the beloved and belittled low-carb diet--could be the key to getting his life back on track. Part-journalism and part-memoir, his account combines the story of his post--Atkins life with fascinating analysis of the nature of food addiction and the role carbohydrates play in the steady expansion of humanity's waistlines. Some readers may be put off by the impression that the author is merely an Atkins apologist, but as the book develops, it becomes clear that Leith is speaking in broader and more contextual terms about our strange, often-desperate relationship with the food we eat. Readers with an open mind will be amply rewarded by this lighthearted yet thought-provoking book. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A descent into hell,
By
This review is from: The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict (Paperback)
This starts out as a funny book; but, ultimately, it isn't. This is a very sad book. We witness Mr Leith descent into his own private hell bounded by his addictions to food, alcohol and drugs. His weight will mark the beginning of his way to recovery, and this is the very first part of the book, and here the author is at his best. The narrative is made of disjointed pieces of coke snorting, binge drinking, vomiting, passing outs, interspeced with parts of interviews (most notably with Dr Richard Atkins), impressions (some funny, some ironic), opinions, and self-questionning. It ends on an uplifting note thoughhope and happiness can prevail in the end nonetheless, or so it seems. Despite some flaws, I liked it a lot.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiring!,
By Iread Abit (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict (Paperback)
This book is funny, sad and inspiring. For anyone who is overweight, I think this book could be very helpful. It made me realize a lot about myself that I did not know, and sometimes that's all you need to start living a better life.Not just for food addicts either, it's an entertaining story for anyone. and to see how he's battled this addiction that is commonly not recognized as a serious addiction, is truly inspiring.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews) 10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Here's the problem...,
By Huldren - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Hungry Years (Hardcover)
I don't hate this book, but it's not the book I thought it would be. From the review I'd read and from the title itself, I was expecting a book about food addiction. But it's not just about binge-eating, as William Leith is also heavily into coke, drinking and anything else that you might become addicted to (cell phones, casual sex). By the end of the memoir he seems to have become addicted to walking, though I'm not quite sure if we're supposed to think this is a positive thing or not.You could argue -- as Leith does -- that the basics of addiction are the same no matter what you are addicted to, and you'd probably be right. However, I still feel that snorting coke and drinking yourself unconscious is on a whole other level than unhealthy eating, because you need to cross a social threshold to do drugs. For me this threshold is very high, and that makes it difficult for me to grasp the kind of world where doing coke recreationally is normal, never mind doing it until you collapse. I was hoping to find a book about the love-hate relationship a binge-eater has with food, but Leith's memoir is more about how a traumatic childhood can trigger compulsiveness. The language itself is even a little compulsive, with repeated sentences like, "I am, and I am not;" "We are empty, and we are not empty." There are several lines in a row that begin with the word "And," and five or six chapters end with the same sentence, in order to drive a point home. All in all this is not a terrible book. It doesn't offer any final solutions, it's humorous and sometimes thoughtful, and with its bite-size chapters it's an addictive read. But it's not really a book about food addiction. 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Smoothly-Written Chronicle of Addiction,
By Debra Hamel - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Hungry Years (Hardcover)
William Leith's The Hungry Years, written in smooth, stream-of-consciousness prose, is a chronicle of the author's addictions, principally to food but also to alcohol and drugs. Leith writes about bingeing and being fat (a word he injects into the narrative at every opportunity), about feeling fat even during his thin periods, about dieting--losing weight and gaining more back, losing and gaining. His history is punctuated by lapses into unthinking consumption, gluttony on a scale that may surprise his more abstemious readers. During the period covered in the book Leith is attempting to lose weight on yet another diet, this time the low-carbohydrate Atkins plan. While chronicling his progress and backsliding on Atkins Leith gives a fractured account of his life, which in turn illuminates his addictions: unhappy years in boarding school, a series of unhappy relationships. Throughout, Leith is searching for the underlying cause of his addictions: he is smart enough to recognize that whatever his current condition--fat or thin or drunk or not--however successfully he may be treating his symptoms, he is basically unhappy. However much he loses this time on Atkins, in other words, diet alone can't truly help him.In the course of writing this staggeringly personal, and sometimes amusing, account of himself, Leith wanders also into related topics. He writes about French fry production and celebrity diets (Robbie Coltrane, "Hagrid" in the Harry Potter films, will not appreciate his mentions here), about pain killers and plastic surgery. (Leith's graphic description of the last should dissuade any but the most intractably vain from undergoing elective procedures.) In the end Leith's various ruminations come together into a coherent whole. The book succeeds as a readable exploration of both the West's culture of consumption and its author's demons--wounded by book's end, if not yet slain. Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fast-paced Memoir about Compulsivity and Self Discovery,
By Joel McIntosh - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Hungry Years (Hardcover)
Leith's book is a powerful read for anyone who has grappled with compulsive behavior. His memoir reads like a stream-of-conscious odyssey of a bright guy struggling to master his relationship to external desires for food, alcohol, drugs, and women. In the end, he discovers that his goal of mastery may have been misguided, and that his compulsivity may be more about his need for emotional calm than external pleasure. Leith's book is funny, intelligent, and, in the end, optimistic. While the book tends to get bogged down when the author spends too much time explaining the ins and outs of the Atkins diet and the theory that supports it, it is a generally fast moving read that engages the reader.
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
