Tag: amateur boxing
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#98: ‘Fighting Men of London: Voices From Inside The Ropes’ by Alex Daley
‘Fighting Men of London’ is the result of a project by Alex Daley, who realised that time was running out if anyone was going to record the career experiences and life stories of boxers from London whose professional careers spanned the 1940s and 50s. The book was published in 2014 by Pitch Publishing and contains…
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#97: ‘A History of Women’s Boxing’ by Malissa Smith
‘A History of Women’s Boxing’ by Malissa Smith is the defining publication of women’s participation in boxing, published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2014. Extraordinarily well researched, this book brings the reader details and stories of women prizefighters from as early as 1722, when Hannah Hyfield challenged Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes to meet her at the…
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#96: ‘All The Battles’ by Mann Abu Taleb
‘All The Battles’ is a boxing-themed novel written by Maan Abu Taleb, published by Hoopoe Fiction in 2017 and translated into English by Robin Moger. The book follows advertising employee Saed Habjouqa as he develops an internet-based obsession with boxing, which eventually leads him to seek out a famed gym to train for himself. Not…
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#94: ‘Not Just A Game – Sporting Poetry’ edited by Andy Croft and Sue Dymoke
‘Not Just A Game’ is an anthology of sporting poems, collected and edited by Andy Croft and Sue Dymoke, and published by Five Leaves press in 2006. I was questioning whether to post about this book as there are only three boxing-related poems, by two authors, in a collection with 200+ pages. However, I do…
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#93: ‘The Boxer’ by Nikesh Shukla
‘The Boxer’ is Nikesh Sukla’s Young Adult-genre novel, published by Hodder Children’s Books in 2019. The boxer in question is teenager Sunil, the victim of a racist attack in Bristol, who eventually finds himself in a boxing gym in an attempt to learn self-defence. As he begins to train, ‘Sunny’ battles the traumatic effects of…
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#91: ‘Death of a Boxer’ by Pete Carvill
‘Death of a Boxer’ is Pete Carvill’s ode (or rather series of odes) to boxing, a collection of essays outlining his relationship with the sport. The book was published by Biteback Publishing, February 2024. Carvill walks us through what is now a strained association with the noble art, exploring themes of masculinity; the importance of…
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#90: ‘Headshot’ by Rita Bullwinkel
‘Headshot’ is Rita Bullwinkel’s innovative novel about a group of girl boxers, published by Daunt Books in March 2024. The first thing to say about this book is how interesting the format is: it follows eight boxers (from the quarter-final stage) competing across two days in a fictional amateur tournament in the USA. The book’s…
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#88: ‘Dancing Shoes is Dead’ by Gavin Evans
‘Dancing Shoes is Dead’ is Gavin Evans’ memoir about his life as a political activist and lifelong boxing fan. The book is published by Black Swan. The memoir charts Evans’ life growing up in Apartheid-era South Africa and his early involvement as a committed activist, eventually aligning with the ANC. His political ideals are interwoven…
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#87: ‘The Saga of Sock’ by John V. Grombach
‘The Saga of Sock’ by John V. Grombach, published in 1949, was a contemporary attempt to trace the history of boxing from its inception (as stated in this book) in Ancient Greece, through the place it held in the Roman Empire, to its reemergence in Georgian Britain, with the ultimate intention of showing the influence…
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#86: ‘Mighty Atoms’ by Amanda Whittington
‘Mighty Atoms’, written by Amanda Whittington, is a play which was commissioned by Hull Truck Theatre in 2017, the year in which Hull was named as Britain’s City of Culture. As with so many plays, I heard about this one only weeks after it was performed near where I live. Annoyingly, the play was staged…
Writers on Boxing 