Tag: the sweet science
-
#42: ‘The Pugilist at Rest’ by Thom Jones
‘The Pugilist at Rest’ is an award-winning collection of short stories by Thom Jones. Outside of reading about boxing, I cannot believe I hadn’t read anything by Thom Jones previously. This combination of investigating masculinity, mental health problems, self-medication and over-analysing one’s place in society has always been my particular sweet spot when it comes…
-
#41: ‘Boxing Nostalgia’ by Alex Daley
‘Boxing Nostalgia – The Good, The Bad and The Weird’ is a collection of articles by Alex Daley, originally published in Boxing News. Between October 2015 and October 2018 Alex Daley authored a regular column for Boxing News, in which he compiled notes and stories about British boxing’s colourful past. This book is full of…
-
#40: ‘A Neutral Corner’ by A.J. Liebling
‘A Neutral Corner’ is a collection of essays by A.J. Liebling. In my opinion this collection is a much more varied and superior collection of essays than Liebling’s celebrated ‘The Sweet Science’. I feel as though Liebling’s greatest skill, as with Budd Schulberg and Djuna Barnes, is as an observer of people, and perhaps the…
-
#39: ‘Fighter’ by Andy Lee (with Niall Kelly)
‘Fighter’ is the autobiography of Andy Lee. I wasn’t expecting much from this book except to get a better insight into the career of a boxer who I mainly know from his TV work here in the UK, and as the trainer of the likes of Joseph Parker. It turned out to be so much…
-
#38: ‘King of the Gypsies’ – Bartley Gorman (with Peter Walsh)
‘King of the Gypsies’ is an attempt to document what is, frankly, the wild life story of bare knuckle fighter Bartley Gorman. I’ve said previously that I don’t seek out books about ‘hard men’ as they don’t appeal to me at all, but I’d heard enough about the character and personality of Gorman to pick…
-
#37: ‘Ringside’ by Budd Schulberg
‘Ringside – A Treasury of Boxing Reportage’ is a collection of boxing articles written by Budd Schulberg for a number of publications, including Esquire, Boxing Illustrated, Sunday Herald and Sports Illustrated. I really like BS’s writing, which is rooted in a lifetime of fight-watching and a remarkable knack for observing the characters within the professional…
-
#36: ‘In This Corner…!’ by Peter Heller
‘In This Corner…! – Forty World Champions Tell Their Story’ by Peter Heller is a collection of interviews with forty former world champions from 1912-1960s. There are some really great interviews in this book, including the likes of Charley Phil Rosenberg, Henry Armstrong, Willie Pep and Emile Griffith. I feel very lucky that a number…
-
#35: ‘The Tartan Legend’ by Ken Buchanan
‘The Tartan Legend’ is Ken Buchanan’s autobiography, published in 2000. I don’t read a lot of boxers’ autobiographies as they usually follow the same dull pattern of empty, glossy celebrity books, totally lacking in substance. However, I’ve always been a big fan of Buchanan’s fighting style so I’ve had this book on my reading list…
-
#34: ‘Old Holborn Book of Boxing’ edited by Peter Wilson
Published in 1969, the ‘Old Holborn Book of Boxing’ is a collection of articles, edited by Peter Wilson, about a number of boxers, including Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, Sandy Sadler, Benny Lynch and Henry Cooper. There’s also a quiz – which I did very badly at!
-
#33: ‘East End Born and Bled’ by Jeff Jones
‘East London Born and Bled – The Remarkable Story of Boxing in London’ by Jeff Jones. I really enjoyed reading this book and being led through the east end of London via its boxing clubs, gyms and venues, most of which don’t exist anymore. Though luckily for the boxing historians out there, east London does…
Writers on Boxing 