First edition cover | |
Author | Ryan Nerz |
---|---|
Cover artist | Philip Pascuzzo |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Competitive eating |
Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
Publication date | April 2006 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | ix, 308 pp |
ISBN | 0-312-33968-2 |
OCLC | 62084428 |
641.01/3 22 | |
LC Class | TX631 .N47 2006 |
Eat This Book is a book by Ryan Nerz which explores the world of competitive eating. Published by St. Martin's Press in 2006, Eat This Book provides a firsthand look into this sometimes controversial sport. Nerz, who spent a year as an emcee for the International Federation of Competitive Eating, has firsthand insight into the competitive eating phenomenon.
Alfred Ryan Nerz is an American gonzo journalist from Columbus, Indiana. He is also an author of two books that were featured in The New York Times Book review and Entertainment Weekly.
Competitive eating, or speed eating, is an activity in which participants compete against each other to consume large quantities of food, usually in a short time period. Contests are typically eight to ten minutes long, although some competitions can last up to thirty minutes, with the person consuming the most food being declared the winner. Competitive eating is most popular in the United States, Canada and Japan, where organized professional eating contests often offer prizes, including cash.
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, New York City. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers. Bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints.
Because Nerz's book was released in the same month as Jason Fagone's Horsemen of the Esophagus , and since both books cover the sport of competitive eating, a number of published reviews covered both books together and drew comparisons between them.
Jason Fagone is an American journalist and author. His work has appeared in GQ, Wired, Esquire, The Atlantic, New York, Grantland, The New York Times, and the Huffington Post Highline, among other outlets. In 2002, the Columbia Journalism Review named him one of "Ten Young Writers on the Rise".
Horsemen of the Esophagus by Jason Fagone is a nonfiction book about the sport of competitive eating and the outsized American appetite. Horsemen follows three American "gurgitators" during a year on the pro eating circuit: Ohio housepainter David "Coondog" O'Karma, South Jersey truck driver Bill "El Wingador" Simmons, and Manhattan day-trader Tim "Eater X" Janus. Horseman makes stops at 27 competitive eating contests around the world, including the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island and includes an interview with Nathan's champion at the time, Takeru Kobayashi.
The strongest criticism levelled at Eat This Book in reviews is that Nerz uses prose that is more sensational than objective. Jay Jennings describes Nerz as "more mythifier than journalist", [1] and Booklist critiqued his book as "basically a book-length infomercial for the organization and its most famous athletes." [2]
Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. Booklist’s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is available to subscribers in print and online. Booklist is published 22 times per year, and reviews over 7,500 titles annually. The Booklist brand also offers a blog, various newsletters, and monthly webinars. The Booklist offices are located in the American Library Association headquarters in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.
An infomercial is a form of television commercial, which generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of direct response television (DRTV), long-form infomercials are typically 28:30 or 58:30 minutes in length. Infomercials are also known as paid programming. This phenomenon started in the United States, where infomercials were typically shown overnight, outside peak prime time hours for commercial broadcasters. Some television stations chose to air infomercials as an alternative to the former practice of signing off. Some channels air infomercials 24 hours. By 2009, most infomercial spending in the U.S. occurred during the early morning, daytime and evening hours, or in the afternoon. Stations in most countries around the world have instituted similar media structures. The infomercial industry is worth over $200 billion.
Despite this negative criticism, other reviewers found the direct involvement by Nerz, and first-hand account of his own personal quest to become a competitive participant both absorbing and entertaining. [3] Jennings commends Nerz for presenting a broader cast of characters who participate in the sport, even though Nerz's book covers a narrower view of the sport than Fagone's Horsemen of the Esophagus. [1] Nerz was able to provide increased coverage of the competitors as a result of emceeing many contests, and therefore obtaining direct access to many competitors that Fagone did not have. The book's breadth of coverage, both in terms of contests arranged neatly by chapter and in terms of the number of competitors, was also noted positively in other reviews. [2]
The Publishers Weekly review of the book said that “Nerz chronicles his amusing adventures in the perverse, repellent, strangely heroic world of competitive eating…with glee and good humor.” The New York Times Book Review compared the author’s style to that of Grantland Rice, an early 20th-century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. Calling the author “more mythifier than journalist,” the Times Book Review added that the competitive eaters he profiled “are indeed a colorful, varied bunch, even without the pro-wrestling-style personalities the IFOCE encourages.”
Nerz appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on April 18, 2006, to discuss the book.
Orienteering is a group of sports that require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map, which they use to find control points. Originally a training exercise in land navigation for military officers, orienteering has developed many variations. Among these, the oldest and the most popular is foot orienteering. For the purposes of this article, foot orienteering serves as a point of departure for discussion of all other variations, but almost any sport that involves racing against a clock and requires navigation with a map is a type of orienteering.
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings was a Canadian-American journalist who served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005. Despite dropping out of high school, he transformed himself into one of American television's most prominent journalists.
Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on sporting topics and competitions.
Kenneth Wayne Jennings III is an American game show contestant and author. Jennings holds the record for the longest winning streak on the U.S. game show Jeopardy! and he holds the record for the highest average correct responses per game in Jeopardy! history – 34.2 – for those contestants with at least 300 correct responses; no other contestant has exceeded 30. Jennings is also the second highest-earning contestant in American game show history. In 2004, Jennings won 74 consecutive Jeopardy! games before he was defeated by challenger Nancy Zerg on his 75th appearance. His total earnings on Jeopardy! are $3,196,300, consisting of $2,520,700 over his 74 wins, a $2,000 second-place prize in his 75th appearance, a $500,000 second-place prize in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions, a $100,000 win for second-place prize in the Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades, as well as half of a $300,000 prize in the IBM Challenge, when he competed against Watson. Jennings defeated Rutter in that IBM Challenge, finishing second to the computer while Rutter finished third.
The Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest is an annual American hot dog competitive eating competition. It is held each year on Independence Day at Nathan's Famous Corporation's original, and best-known restaurant at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in Coney Island, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City.
Sonya Thomas , also known by her nickname The Black Widow, and "The Leader of the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus", is a South Korean-born American competitive eater from Alexandria, Virginia. Thomas joined the International Federation of Competitive Eating in 2003 and quickly rose to the top of the ranks, beating competitive eaters such as Eric Booker.
Competitive swimwear refers to the swimsuit, clothing, equipment and accessories used in the aquatic sports of swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, triathlon and water polo.
David "Coondog" O'Karma is a Competitive eating champion, entertainer, and writer from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He was formerly a member of the IFOCE, but is now the director of a Competitive Eating organization called the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters (AICE).
Steven "Steve" Keiner is an American competitive eater. He was the 1999 winner of the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, downing 20¼ hot dogs in 12 minutes. Keiner is from Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey and like many competitive eaters has used nicknames during contests; one of his nicknames, "Ralph," was given to him by newspaper reporter Gersh Kuntzman, because Kuntzman "gave the eaters nicknames that linked them to sporting heroes past". Kuntzman also provided much of the only media coverage of the controversy surrounding Keiner's title, reporting that video appeared to show that Keiner may have begun eating his hot dogs just before the contest's starting gun was fired. Keiner is also sometimes known on the competitive eating circuit as "The Terminator."
Philadelphia is a regional monthly magazine published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by the Lipson family of Philadelphia and its company, Metrocorp.
Matt Bai is an American journalist, author and screenwriter. Since 2014, he has been the national political columnist for Yahoo! News. For more than a decade prior to that, he was the chief political correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, where he covered three presidential campaigns, as well as a columnist for the Times. His cover stories in the magazine include the 2008 cover essay “Is Obama the End of Black Politics?” and a 2004 profile of John Kerry titled “Kerry’s Undeclared War.” His work was honored in two editions of The Best American Political Writing. Bai is a graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University in Medford, MA and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, where the faculty awarded him the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. In 2014, Bai played a recurring role as himself in the second season of TV show House of Cards.
Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta was a Filipino poet, editor, author, and teacher. One of the country's most respected writers, Dimalanta published several books of poetry, criticism, drama, and prose and edited various literary anthologies. In 1999, she received Southeast Asia's highest literary honor, the S.E.A. Write Award.
Major League Eating (MLE) is an organization that organises professional competitive eating events and television specials. The stated mission of Major League Eating is to maintain a safe environment for all events, to create a dynamic and enjoyable fan experience, and to help sponsors develop, publicize and execute eating events in a wide variety of food disciplines. The league airs its annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest on ESPN.
Jay Robert Jennings is an American independent filmmaker and author. He has directed two feature films, Loanshark (1999) and Hell to Pay (2014), as well as, an assortment of short films and documentaries. Jennings uses handheld cameras and cinéma vérité techniques, shooting his films among old Hollywood buildings and streets.
A Few Seconds of Panic is a nonfiction first-person narrative by Stefan Fatsis, published in 2008. The book chronicles Fatsis, a professional 43-year-old sportswriter working for the Wall Street Journal, and his attempt to play in the National Football League. Along the way, he relates the personal stories and struggles that professional football players face in the league. After some setbacks, Fatsis eventually finds some success as a backup placekicker for the Denver Broncos. The book's title comes from Jason Elam's description of being a kicker as "hours and hours of boredom surrounded by a few seconds of panic."
Video game journalism is a branch of journalism concerned with the reporting and discussion of video games, typically based on a core "reveal–preview–review" cycle. There has been recent growth in online publications and blogs.