Sweat

Get in the xigxag app
Already purchased

Click to open directly in the xigxag app.

This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book. Pre-order Buy Now £{{ price }} Send as a gift
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Sweat written and read by Bill Hayes.

'I was riveted by Sweat and its extraordinary tale of the ups and downs of exercise over millennia' Jane Fonda

‘Does what all good history books should do: take the past and make it vastly more human’ The Times

_________________________

From the author of Insomniac City 'who can tackle just about any subject in book form, and make you glad he did' (San Francisco Chronicle): a cultural, scientific, literary, and personal history of exercise

Exercise is our modern obsession, and we have the fancy workout gear and fads to prove it. Exercise – a form of physical activity distinct from sports, play, or athletics – was an ancient obsession, too, but as a chapter in human history, it's been largely overlooked. In Sweat, Bill Hayes runs, jogs, swims, spins, walks, bikes, boxes, lifts, sweats, and downward-dogs his way through the origins of different forms of exercise, chronicling how they have evolved over time, and dissecting the dynamics of human movement.

Hippocrates, Plato, Galen, Susan B. Anthony, Jack LaLanne, and Jane Fonda, among many others, make appearances in Sweat, but chief among the historical figures is Girolamo Mercuriale, a Renaissance-era Italian physician who aimed singlehandedly to revive the ancient Greek “art of exercising” through his 1569 book De arte gymnastica. In the pages of Sweat, Mercuriale and his illustrated treatise are vividly brought back to life. asHayes ties his own personal experience to the cultural and scientific history of exercise, from ancient times to the present day, he gives us a new way to understand its place in our lives in the 21st century.

Critics Review

I was riveted by Sweat and its extraordinary tale of the ups and downs of exercise over millennia. Who knew?
Jane Fonda
Perhaps because exercise is such a universal - and universally humbling - part of our lives, Sweat does, seemingly effortlessly, what all good history books should do: take the past and make it vastly more human
The Times
There’s a skip to Hayes’ step throughout, and the book will certainly ground any January health kick in a grander context
Daily Mail
As a storyteller, Hayes is like Joe Frazier … I would have liked this book to go on longer. Erudite, ludic, eccentric, energetic and historically transporting, it’s like falling through a gym and landing in a joust
Guardian
Bill Hayes’ peripatetic inquiry into the history of exercise is a delight ... You’re in for a treat. Hayes weaves his riveting findings in the archives with a revelatory memoir of physical exertion that begins to answer that most human of questions: what does the body mean?
Alison Bechdel, author of 'The Secret to Superhuman Strength'
Charming and idiosyncratic ... A distinctive, often moving blend of historical and memoirist writing ... Hayes’s exuberant book tells us what awaits if we can only make it so
NEW YORKER
One of a number of titles that promise to take a serious look at exercise
Financial Times, Books of the Year 2022
Charming and compelling … Among the pleasures of Sweat, Bill Hayes’s idiosyncratic and delightful history of exercise, is learning about the sweat lives of the great and good
The Critic
Hayes fascinatingly traces exercise’s gradual evolution into the multibillion-pound industry it is now – by way of some genuine scientific breakthroughs and several passing crazes
Readers' Digest
A lovely weave of memory and science, great characters and compassionate humor. You will love it for its wisdom and wonderful writing
Anne Lamott
Like the most rewarding kind of travel writer, Bill Hayes is both informative and personal as he takes us through the borderlands ... I'm grateful for the way this intimate, reflective, and factual guidebook captures the feeling of that terrain
Robert Pinsky
Playful and powerful ... profoundly moving ... Hayes writes with so much panache that reading this book is thrilling
Boston Globe
Bill Hayes has an unusual set of skills ... He is part science writer, part memoirist, part culture explainer
New York Times
A beguiling brew of fascinating scientific facts and illuminating, poignant anecdotes ... vital and pulsing with energy.
Entertainment Weekly
Exquisitely wrought, heartrending and joyous
Joyce Carol Oates
Like Patti Smith's haunting M Train, Hayes' book weaves seemingly disparate threads of memory into a kind of sanctuary - a secret place where one can shake off the treasured relics of past lives and prepare to be reborn anew
San Francisco Chronicle
Hayes's work is resoundingly about life - about being wide awake to possibility, to the beauty of every fleeting moment
Oprah.com
Taking us through the different forms of exercise and their origins, Hayes gives a cultural, scientific and personal history of human movement
Irish Independent, Books of the Year 2022
All laud and honor to Hayes
Washington Post
He is, in his photos and writings, the great poet of the everyday
Edmund White
A sweeping inquiry into the sometimes converging, sometimes colliding worlds of psychology, medicine, mythology, aging, and mental health
Maria Popova
Memoir, history, and science come together and apart again in a book that reads very much like a dream, switching genre and subject with a beautiful logic of its own, illuminated now and then with flashes of gorgeous insight ... Read this one and savour it
Out
If there is one person in the modern world who can reinvigorate Mercuriale’s enormous unfinished labor and bridge the physical, the philosophical, and the poetic - bridge Whitman and Warhol, Plato and Peloton, Kafka and Curie, Tennessee Williams and Serena Williams; bridge the “immediate bodily now” of exercise with “the wisdom of the past that had faded from living memory” - it is Bill Hayes. And so he does, in Sweat: A History of Exercise — an expedition, both existential and historical, spanning two thousand years and three continents
Maria Popova

About xigxag

Experience the best audiobooks with xigxag, an innovative and user-friendly audiobook platform designed for seamless discovery, purchase, and enjoyment of your favorite titles. Our flexible pricing model offers bestselling audiobooks for less, providing affordable prices and the best audiobook deals without requiring a subscription. Perfect for gifting, xigxag also features convenient audiobook gift cards and in-app audiobook gifting options.

 

Beyond the listening experience, xigxag stands as an exciting alternative to big tech, embodying a strong commitment to sustainability and ethical practices. As the only B Corp certified UK audiobook service, we ensure a guilt-free listening experience from a leader in audiobook innovation.

 

Effortlessly search audiobooks, access honest audiobook reviews that evaluate both the content and narration, and easily discover hidden gems. Whether you prefer to download or stream top audiobook titles, xigxag provides the best possible listening experience anytime, anywhere, on the UK’s best independent audiobook app. Discover the future of audiobooks today.