Insatiable - Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream

Meet the Four Horsemen of the Oesophagus: Bill `El Wingador' Simmons, David'Coondog' O'Karma, Eric'Badlands' Booker, Timothy `Eater X' Janus - just a few of the stars of one of America's fastest growing sports: competitive eating. In a country in which one third of the population is clinically obese, competitive eating has made the leap from county fairs and paper napkins to stadium arenas. Over the past two years, more than 1.4 million households have tuned in to Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Contest on ESPN. Beginning with a trip to Japan in search of the elusive (and surprisingly slimline) champion Takeru Kobayashi, and ending up at the sport's annual grand finale in Coney Island, Jason Fagone spends a year with the stars of the scene, watching as they eat their way into (or out of) oblivion, and finding out just what compels a 'gurgitator' to force down 552 oysters in ten minutes. Wickedly funny and devastatingly insightful, insatiable uses this weirdest of sports as a lens through which to examine the dark side of the American Dream - the never-ending quest for wealth, celebrity, possessions and food. And along the way Jason Fagone uncovers the wonderfully human stories at the heart of this seemingly unnourished corner of American culture. Bigger, better, richer, fatter, insatiable unlocks a world we all need to face up to. Dig in.