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    Books on Boxing

    Currently reading Rob Steen's biography of Sonny Liston. Excellent stuff but tough reading if you think boxing can be defended as a noble sport, because Steen is very hostile towards it.

    Joyce Carol Oates probably wrote the definitive boxing book, and I thought Thomas Hauser produced a fine biography of Muhammad Ali, if a little hagiographic at times. My question about this literature goes back to the Steen-Liston dilemma: can a fair book about boxing be written from a perspective that is largely hostile to its existence?

    #2
    Will have to give the Liston biography a read. For no particular reason have ended up reading a fair bit of boxing books in the last couple of weeks:

    Ali by Jonathan Eig

    ESPN called this one "provocative". It's not, unless you consider pointing out some of Ali's personal flaws (which are well known and do nothing to diminish his many achievements). Fits well between the Hauser hagiography and Kram's "Ghosts of Manila" which probably went a bit over the top with some of the comments). Not fantastic, but definitely worth reading.

    My Big Fight - Sugar Ray Leonard

    Like most boxing autobiographies, does a really good job of getting across just how different boxers are to the rest of us. He's honest about his own accomplishments (namely that he felt he lost the second Hearns fight) and outlines his own history of abuse and the impact it had on his life. Not a classic, but worth reading

    Dog Rounds: Life and Death in the Ring - Elliot Worsell

    Bit of a strange one this as is a book about recent deaths in the ring (no detail on the most famous case, the Griffiths-Paret incident). Should be a fascinating topic but it didn't really work, primarily I think because those involved seemed either (totally understandably) to find it difficult to process or didn't appear to want to talk about it in depth. As a result, it covers a lot of cases but without much real depth. With the exception of the Nick Blackwell case (Worsell knowing him well from his role doing PR for him) there isn't much actual insight. Certainly Eubanks Sr and Jr come out of it lookin fairly weird, but that's hardly news...

    Unforgiveable Blackness - Geoffrey Ward

    Half-way through this biography of Jack Johnson. Was Sports Book of the Year fairly recently and you can definitely see why.

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      #3
      Great White Hopes by Graeme Kent is a very interesting read about how the white world attempted to defeat Jack Johnson. Recommended.

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        #4
        'Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs Max Scheming, and a World on the Brink' by David Margolick.

        'Joe Louis' by Randy Roberts.

        'Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times' by Thomas Hauser

        Those are the only three boxing books I've ever read, but they were all compelling.

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          #5
          David Remnick on Muhammad Ali

          And I once read Jack "Kid" Berg The Whitechapel Windmill which whilst no great shakes as literature was a pretty amazing story, well researched, about the Jewish East Ender who became World Light Welterweight Champion in 1930.

          His This is Your Life is On YouTube
          Last edited by Nefertiti2; 29-12-2017, 11:59.

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            #6
            Another book on Jack Johnson by Theresa Runstedtler

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              #7
              I forgot one - occasional WSC contributor Dave Hannigan's 'The Big Fight' about Ali's one fight at Croke Park. Also very good.

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                #8
                Oh, missed this. Apparently, the current go-to Ali book and, astonishingly, one that actually adds something more to the pile of existing Ali biographies is Jonathan Eig's "ALI - A Life". It comes from 500 interviews and this is what a very bookie mate said.

                I'm not one to read books about sport but I find writing on
                boxing, boxers and Muhammad Ali in particular, fascinating.
                This brand new biography is standing out for me for its usage of fight analysis technology to reveal how much more punishment he took in comparison to the amount he dished out (about 50% in his first 10 years of fighting)
                Also its the first book on Ali's life to be published since his death so it shows a complete overview of the man, his works and his astounding cultural legacy, but this is by no means a puff piece. Eig refuses to shy away from Ali's more questionable moments, views and actions...but why would we want him to?
                The obviously exhaustive research that went into this book in no way makes Eig's prose slow or overly academic which is a big turn off for me when it comes to non fiction.
                Non-fiction book of the year for me.
                Also, a personal must-read on boxing is In the Red Corner: A Journey into Cuban Boxing Paperback by John Duncan which tracks the attempt by the author to set up a fight between Felix Savon and Mike Tyson and intersperses this with a history of Cuban boxing. IT is not only excellent on boxing but Cuba as well. I also had the bonus of a phone call to the author which led to me seeing a fight between the U-23 Cuban Olympic boxing team and a local club in Havana.

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                  #9
                  Would broadly agree with those comments although Eig's repeated use of CompuBox scores to tally the number of punches Ali took gets kinda wearying after a while (also I did read a review saying that it was based on loads of interviews but not many with people who really mattered). As noted earlier, if you really want to read an iconoclastic take on Ali then "Ghosts of Manila" by Mark Kram is your book...

                  The Cuba book sounds great - will have to keep an eye open for it.

                  Forgot to say also recently read Mike Tyson (and ghostwriter's) "Iron Ambition" which is largely about Cus D'Amato. The start and end, where Tyson talks about his own work with D'Amato are worth reading. The middle bit focuses on D'Amato's attempts to take on the mob and their role effectively running boxing for large parts of post-WWII. This manages to take a really interesting story and render it relatively inpenetrable and dull.

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                    #10
                    FOUR KINGS by George Kimball covers the great era of Hagler, Duran, Hearns and Leonard. Though a lover of boxing, Kimball was also it's fiercest critic and never afraid to say when something stinks. His columns in the Irish times were essential reading and I'd recommend any of his books

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                      #11
                      I will read the Eig book sometime in 2018 and post a review in this thread. Kimball is available fairly cheap on Kindle so will read that next week.

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                        #12
                        Funny thing - I never watch boxing or cycling as I have no interest in them as sports, but I'm not averse to reading good books about (certain) boxing/boxers or cycling/cyclists. Do you know anyone who has no interest in football but enjoys reading (certain) football books? Is that a possibility? I can't imagine it.

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                          #13
                          That's a great question. I could imagine reading books on horse racing or Formula 1 without actually having any interest in the sports, but football or cricket, no.

                          I think the answer is that boxing, cycling and Formula 1 are obsessive, individualist pursuits and we can find that obsessiveness fascinating as case studies, whereas football is tribal so if you're not part of that tribal process, it has no interest.

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                            #14
                            And that, sir, is a great answer.

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                              #15
                              I'm with imp on this, I don't really have the time or inclination to follow boxing or cycling in any detail but both are fascinating and both spawn good stories and good books. I guess these are the most extreme of what I'd consider mainstream sports,demanding extraordinary amounts from the top competitors.
                              On cycling The Death of Marco Pantani springs to mind and Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride.

                              Unforgivable Blackness mentioned above, A Bloody Canvas and In Black and White on Joe Louis and his contemporary Jesse Owens come to mind on the boxing front

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                                #16
                                Don't forget Norman Mailer's 'The Fight', on the Ali-Foreman fight in Kinshasa in 1975.

                                And 'War, Baby' by Kevin Mitchell, on the 1995 Benn-McClellan fight.

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