Series in Boxing
Books in Boxing
Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man
*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction *Shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Memoir/Biography *Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize One of The Times UK ’s Best Memoirs of 2018, BuzzFeed’s Best Nonfiction of 2018, Autostraddle’s Best LGBT Books of 2018, Book Riot’s Best Queer Books of 2018, and 52 Insight’s Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2018 From an award-winning writer whose work bristles with “hard-won strength, insight, agility, and love” (Maggie Nelson), an exquisite and troubling narrative of masculinity, violence, and society. In this groundbreaking new book, the author, a trans man, trains to fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden while struggling to untangle the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence. Through his experience boxing—learning to get hit, and to hit back; wrestling with the camaraderie of the gym; confronting the betrayals and strength of his own body—McBee examines the weight of male violence, the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes, and the limitations of conventional masculinity. A wide-ranging exploration of gender in our society, Amateur is ultimately a story of hope, as McBee traces a new way forward, a new kind of masculinity, inside the ring and outside of it. In this graceful, stunning, and uncompromising exploration of living, fighting, and healing, we gain insight into the stereotypes and shifting realities of masculinity today through the eyes of a new man.
Born Fearless
'Hard eyes stare out of massive beards, their faces marked by the scars of battle. With these guys their webbing looks like it belongs to them, rather than it's been hung on a pair of reluctant shoulders. There's not a word been said to us, but the ante has clearly been upped. There's a dark and sinister feeling in the air. It doesn't take a genius to figure it's about to kick off.' Former SAS soldier Big Phil Campion tells it like is in this brutally honest account of his insanely dangerous life as a private military operator. From playing chicken with a suicide bomber in backstreet Kabul, to taking on pirates with his bare hands, this is true-life action-packed drama at its best.
Great Heavyweights
THIS IS AN ARTICLE/ESSAY, NOT A FULL-LENGTH BOOK. Was Muhammed Ali really "the greatest"? It's considered heresy to suggest otherwise in some circles--especially among those who haven't watched many professional fights. This article goes where the Ali-worshippers fear to tread. That's just one sacred cow tipped over by Henry Brown. But in order to get an accurate picture of the great heavyweights like Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, and (to a lesser extent) George Forman, it's crucial to examine them without the Ali-worshipping lens used by most armchair boxing historians.
Kellie(With: Kellie Harrington)
Kellie Harrington grew up in Dublin's north inner city and was in danger of going down the wrong path in life before she discovered boxing. Her local boxing club was all-male and initially wouldn't let her join, but she persisted. Her development into an elite boxer was confirmed with medals at the 2016 and 2018 world championships, and crowned with a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Meanwhile, Kellie won the hearts of the Irish public through her sparkling personality. Working with Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle, Kellie will tell the story of her sometimes troubled childhood, her unlikely rise to greatness, and her continuing commitment to living a normal life - which in her case has involved deciding to stay amateur as a boxer and keeping her job as part of the household/domestic staff team at a psychiatric hospital.
Legends: Stories from Ireland's Sporting Greats
Stories from the lives of some of Ireland's greatest sports stars. From the highs of lifting trophies and overcoming the impossible, to the lows of battling injury and facing defeat, these are inspiring stories written in plain English for emerging readers. Drawn from bestselling autobiographies and other first-hand accounts, the book features stories from: AP McCoy, Barry McGuigan, Bonnar Ó Loingsigh, Cora Staunton, Gavin Bazunu, Henry Shefflin, Katie Taylor, Keith Earls, Niall Quinn, Paul O'Connell, Philly McMahon, Ronnie Delany, Rosemary Smith, Sonia O'Sullivan and Valerie Mulcahy. An Open Door initiative, published in association with the National Adult Literacy Agency.
Muhammad Ali, Boxing Superstar
Follows Muhammad Ali through his Golden Glove Championships, his Olympic gold medal, and his continued winning as a professional boxer.
Muhammad Ali: Ringside(With: Joyce Carol Oates,Alex Haley)
Throughout his remarkable career, Muhammad Ali s courage, skill, ego, and beauty made him one of the most colorful and well-known of all public figures: someone who truly had to be seen to be believed. Using fight posters, rare memorabilia and classic photographs, Ringside brings Ali s extraordinary life into focus. The essays on the different stages of Ali's life and career are written by some of the finest contemporary American writers. Alex Haley's interview with Ali, with which the book opens, is not to be missed. Illustrated throughout in color, Muhammad Ali: Ringside was originally published at $35.00
Muhammad Ali: Ringside(With: Norman Mailer,Alex Haley)
Throughout his remarkable career, Muhammad Ali s courage, skill, ego, and beauty made him one of the most colorful and well-known of all public figures: someone who truly had to be seen to be believed. Using fight posters, rare memorabilia and classic photographs, Ringside brings Ali s extraordinary life into focus. The essays on the different stages of Ali's life and career are written by some of the finest contemporary American writers. Alex Haley's interview with Ali, with which the book opens, is not to be missed. Illustrated throughout in color, Muhammad Ali: Ringside was originally published at $35.00
Taming the Beast: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson(With: Rory Holloway)
Mike Tyson is a cultural phenomenon: heavyweight boxing champion, author, movie and television actor, Broadway star, tiger owner, felon, tabloid gossip mainstay. His memoir, "Undisputed Truth," was a New York Times bestseller. While no one is disputing the truth he tells in his book, it is clear that he has not told the entire story. That task goes to his one-time best friend, entourage wrangler, and manager – Rory Holloway, in "Taming the Beast: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson" (written with Eric Wilson), Holloway’s memoir of his 15 years with Tyson.The Beast is, no surprise, Tyson himself. When it came to getting the Champ ready for the ring, from his training to deal-making to extricating him from problems and relationships with people like Robin Givens and her gold-digging mother, Don King, and everyone else under the sun, that job fell to Rory Holloway.In "Taming the Beast," Holloway comes clean on all things Tyson, from Mike’s sex addiction, to his comically horrible driving, to his wildman approach to life. He breaks down the entourage – who was good for the Champ, who wasn’t – and deals with the criticism he faced as Tyson spun more and more out of control. When Tyson spit out Evander Holyfield’s ear in 1997, he also spit out his 15-year friendship with Holloway.Compassionate, at times hilarious and terribly sad, "Taming the Beast" is the story of a man so out of touch with reality that he ultimately distanced himself from the only people who had his best interests at heart, severing the brotherhood that once existed, in favor of "yes men" who could supply him with the best drugs and the most hookers. It is a devastating story of watching, helpless, from a ringside seat as your best friend self-destructs and you can’t do a thing about it.Painfully frank, street-wise and cathartic, "Taming the Beast" pulls no punches with its question-and-answer style. It is the book every Tyson fan needs on their nightstand for the undisputed whole truth.
Ten Thousand Words a Minute
Paret lay on the ground, quivering gently, a small froth on his mouth. The house doctor jumped into the ring. He knelt. He pried Paret’s eyelid open. He looked at the eyeball staring out. He let the lid snap shut. He reached into his satchel, took out a needle, jabbed Paret with a stimulant. Paret’s back rose in a high arch. He writhed in real agony. They were calling him back from death. One wanted to cry out, “Leave the man alone. Let him die.” In 1962, Norman Mailer traveled to Chicago to witness the highly anticipated boxing match between heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson and the fearsome Sonny Liston. Along the way, Mailer—arguably the most iconic American writer of the twentieth century—discourses on the nature of, among other things, journalism, prizefighting, good and evil, and life and death. At once terrifying and beautiful, Ten Thousand Words a Minute shows a one-of-a-kind talent at his all-time best. Ten Thousand Words a Minute was originally published in Esquire , February 1963. Cover design by Adil Dara.
The Fights: Photographs(With: A.J. Liebling,Jimmy Cannon,Charles Hoff,Richard B. Woodward)
Photographs of fighters in action are accompanied by essays about boxers, specific fights, and the sport of boxing
Two Ton
Beetle-browed, nearly bald, a head that rode his collarbones like a bowling ball returning on rails, his waist size more than half his five-foot-eight height, Two Ton Tony Galento appeared nearly square, his legs two broomsticks jammed into a vertical hay bale. By all measures he stood no chance when he stepped into the ring against the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, the finest heavyweight of his generation, in Yankee Stadium on a June night in 1939. “I’ll moida da bum,” Galento predicted, and though Louis was no bum, Tony, the Falstaff of boxing, lifted him from the canvas with a single left hook and entered the record books as one of the few men to put the great Louis down. A palooka, a thug, a vibrant appetite of a man, he scrapped his way out of the streets and into the brightest light in American life. For two splendid seconds he stood on the canvas at Yankee Stadium, the great Joe Louis stretched out before him, champ of the world, the toughest man alive, the mythical hero of the waterfront, of Orange, New Jersey, of an American nation little more than a year away from war. Joe Monninger’s spellbinding portrait of a man, a moment, and an era reminds us that sometimes it is through effort, and not the end result, that people most enduringly define themselves.