In the late 1980s, Sven Lindqvist fell into conversation with an evangelical bodybuilder while relaxing in the sauna after his weekly swim. The conversation challenged Lindqvist's view of the sport as macho and vain and individualistic and led to his first attendance at the local gym. In Bench Press, Lindqvist takes us through his own journey in the gym, but also tells us the entertaining and bizarre history of bodybuilding and meditates on what its increased popularity tells us about contemporary society.

Sven Lindqvist was born in Stockholm in 1932 and still lives there. He has travelled extensively through Asia, Africa and Latin America. He is the author of thirty books, including A History of Bombing, Exterminate All the Brutes and Desert Divers, shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.