I got this book and read it on the same day.I just couldn't put it down.I like the fact that it's like one long newspaper article in a way with lots of facts about what he is talking about.I plan to read it again very soon.Buy it

Other reviewers have said much. I would just like to add that this book is brilliantly written. It speaks for every one of us who has ever yearned for a bit MORE of whatever it is. I couldn't put it down. Well done, William Leith.

Leith has some interesting points of view about the wheat/carbohydrate conspiracy which fails to look at the whole picture. Nevertheless I am cutting carbs for the time being!! I feel he has a great capacity for self-delusion as all drug takers do. Blaming the world for his selfish attitudes and indulgent behaviour...and then of course his parents. OK so we all need to 'find ourselves' sometimes, but come on this is old news.....nothing more than some of the seven deadly sins....gluttony and lust for example. Sort yourself out, you have a privaledged background....go and help some people in the third world if you think your life is so bad.

This is a personal memoir of what it means to be an addict. Leith starts off the book defining his issue as an unhealthy relationship with food, bread in particular. He then spends considerable amounts of time researching and eventually participating in the Atkins diet, with some success. When he finds that this does not lead to ultimate personal happiness, and that he has simply channelled his addictive personality traits into other, and equally harmful past times, his world starts to fall apart. The hunger he refers to in the title of the book has very little to do with food, and everything to do with the unquenchable need that he identifies within himself to be fixed in some way. This is moving and fascinating, although not a 'finished' work in any way. I recommend it highly as both a tremendous piece of journalism, and as an intimate insight into what it means to be addicted to just about anything you care to mention.

I think you can only really laugh out loud in this book if you too have experienced the donut syndrome. But Leith says it oh so well. The description of walking around downtown New York was superb. I also found it emotionally compelling, cringeful and startling. His candour is remarkable. Now excuse me whilst I finish off this box of french fancies...