SUMO: A Thinking Fan's Guide to Japan's National Sport, PPB

Sumo is the fattest, fastest sport in the world. The average jock weighs 320 pounds, the average match is over in six seconds. It’s the only sport on earth in which every “game” ends in laughter. Sumo is a joy to behold, with gifted athletes hidden inside a thick layer of superfluous blubber. It boasts a cast of colorful characters, heroes, villains and constant comic relief. Sumo is also a swamp of corruption, in which genteel cheating is a moral dilemma that confronts every wrestler and coach in the sport.

All this is revealed in SUMO: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Japan’s National Sport, by David Benjamin, the only foreigner to ever cover sumo for a major Japanese magazine, Shukan Bunshun, Japan’s most influential newsweekly. Benjamin is also the only foreigner to be publicly denounced by the Japan Sumo Association.