Tag: british boxing
-
#115: ‘An Almanac of Twelve Sports’ by William Nicholson and Rudyard Kipling
Just a quick ‘bonus’ blog post as I spotted this wonderful book in Sanders of Oxford during a visit to the city at the weekend. We were in the shop looking at old maps and prints and spotted ‘An Almanac of Twelve Sports’, illustrated by William Nicholson, on the way out of the shop. The…
-
#113: ‘The Last Bell: Life, Death and Boxing’ by Donald McRae
The Last Bell: Life, Death and Boxing, published by Simon and Schuster, is Donald McRae’s exploration of grief, sporting and political corruption, and is most likely his final book on the subject of boxing. The book cover features a painting by the wonderfully talented Amanda Kelley. This book is a follow-up of sorts to McRae’s…
-
#108: ‘Going for Gold’ by Lisa Lintott
‘Going for Gold’ by Lisa Lintott is a play based on the remarkable and sad story of Frankie Lucas. The play is currently on at Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, London, until 30 November 2024. The play text is published by Salamander Street. Born in St. Vincent, Lucas moved to Croydon, south London as a…
-
#107: ‘Pugilistic Queer Performance: Working Through and Working Out’ by Fintan Walsh
‘Pugilistic Queer Performance: Working Through and Working Out’ by Professor Fintan Walsh was published in volume 26, issue 4 of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and is also available to download (minus the featured images) via the Birkbeck University website. Walsh is currently Head of the School of Creative Arts, Culture and…
-
#106: ‘Sweet Fighting Man: Ring of Truth’ by Melanie Lloyd
Hi! It’s been a couple of months since I last posted. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m preparing to start a creative writing MA so have a lot of pre-reading (and writing!) that I’ve chosen to get into ahead of that course beginning. Also, for any of you that don’t already know, Lizzy…
-
#102: ‘The Grass Arena’ by John Healy
The Grass Arena is the, at times, harrowing autobiography of John Healy, recounting his years living homeless with a severe alcohol addiction. I have been wanting to read this book for a few years now, after watching the documentary about Healy’s life, Barbaric Genius. I had intended it to be a break from reading solely…
-
#101: ‘Boxer Handsome’ by Anna Whitwham
Boxer Handsome is Anna Whitwham’s debut novel and was published by Vintage in 2014. Whitwham’s grandfather was an amateur featherweight at the Crown and Manor Boy’s Club in Hoxton, east London, and his involvement with the sport was, no doubt, the seed of her own interest in boxing. The novel revolves around two protagonists: Bobby,…
-
#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…
-
#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…
-
#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…
Writers on Boxing 