Tag: books
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#25: ‘The Road to Nowhere’ by Tris Dixon
‘The Road to Nowhere – A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands’ by Tris Dixon is a record of Dixon’s travel across numerous U.S. states, attempting to speak to forgotten boxers. I have a special fondness for any book in which the author goes off on a quest to talk to a group of people before it’s…
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#24: ‘The Whitechapel Whirlwind’ by John Harding
‘The Whitechapel Whirlwind’ by John Harding is the story of British-Jewish boxer Jack ‘Kid’ Berg. As with my previous post about Teddy Baldock, this book is a fantastic account of British boxing at a time where boxing gyms were found in numbers throughout the working-class areas of London, and other British cities, and boxing cards…
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#23: ‘Teddy Baldock – The Pride of Poplar’ by Brian Belton
‘Teddy Baldock – The Pride of Poplar’ by Brian Belton is the story of Britain’s youngest ever boxing world champion. Born at Poplar in east London in 1908, and coming from a family of fighters, Teddy Baldock went on to beat American Archie Bell at the Royal Albert Hall and take the world bantamweight title.…
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#22: ‘In Sunshine or in Shadow’ by Donald McRae
‘In Sunshine or in Shadow’ by Donald McRae is a book looking at the history of amateur boxing on both sides of the Troubles in Belfast and Northern Ireland, and the effect which the amateur eventually had on the pro game. Over the past two years Donald McRae has become one of my favourite authors…
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#21: ‘Berserk’ by Don Stradley
The subtitle for ‘Berserk’ by Don Stradley is ‘The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero’, which is one of the most succinct and apt taglines for a book that I’ve come across. Even within the confines of boxing, which is full of wild stories, Valero’s is truly shocking. This is mainly a tale of…
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#20: ‘The Bittersweet Science’ edited by Carlo Rotella and Michael Ezra
‘The Bittersweet Science’ is a collection of fifteen essays about American boxing and boxers, edited by Carlo Rotella and Michael Ezra. Now, this is no judgement on this book, but I almost have no recollection of reading it, though this has much more to do with the fact that I read this book around 18…
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#19: ‘War, Baby’ by Kevin Mitchell
‘War, Baby’ by Kevin Mitchell is a book centring on the ill-fated 1995 world title bout between Nigel Benn and Gerald McLellan. I have to start by saying that if you, like me, hold any conflict about watching boxing as entertainment, and the safety and wellbeing of the boxers, then this book is not going…
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#18: ‘Nosher’ by Nosher Powell (and I’m sure a ghost writer)
‘Nosher’ by Nosher Powell is the autobiography of boxer, and TV and film stunt man, Nosher Powell. I normally avoid books about self-titled ‘hard men’, unless the lives of the men are particularly interesting outside of the violence. I got this book because Powell is from the same part of south London as a lot…
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#17: ‘My Sisters and I at a New York Prizefight’ by Djuna Barnes
‘My Sisters and I at a New York Prizefight’ is an article taken from ‘Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth’, a collection of the early works of avant-garde writer Djuna Barnes. The article describes Barnes and a group of women friends attending a boxing event in 1914, at Brown’s Athletic Club in New York, headlined…
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#16: ‘Shadow Box’ by George Plimpton
‘Shadow Box’ by George Plimpton is an example of a boxing book regularly making ‘top ten’-style lists. Plimpton is best known for a series of books he wrote as a ‘participatory journalist’, in which he played (backup) quarterback for the Detroit Lions, trained as an ice hockey goalie with the Boston Bruins, and, in this…
Writers on Boxing 