 | Serenity: A Boxing Memoir by Ralph Wiley
Buy new: $18.95 / Used from: $11.37 An absolutely beautiful book about boxing, but also about so much more. Some of the main characters here are boxers from the 1980s.
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 | Facing Ali: 15 Fighters / 15 Stories by Stephen Brunt
Buy new: $18.36 / Used from: $0.76 A thoughtful, very well written book collecting the stories of fifteen men who stood across the ring from Muhammad Ali. These stories not only offer a fresh glimpse of Ali, but more importantly, shed light on the lives of men who happened to cross paths with "The Greatest."
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 | Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing (Mainstream Sport) by Donald McRae
Buy new: $13.22 / Used from: $4.73 A nicely written account of the author's personal journey through boxing in the 90s. Includes reports of his encounters with some of the big names in the sport: De La Hoya, Tyson, Holyfield and especially, James Toney.
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 | Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier by Mark Kram
Buy new: $11.16 / Used from: $1.62 A very well written revisionist view of Ali as well as an insightful look at Frazier.
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 | This Bloody Mary Is the Last Thing I Own: A Journey to the End of Boxing by Jonathan Rendall
Buy new: $16.00 / Used from: $0.02 The story of how the author fell in love with the sweet science and ultimately had his heart broken by the sport.
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 | Cut Time: An Education at the Fights by Carlo Rotella
Buy new: $14.00 / Used from: $8.35 Nice collection of essays. The author overlooks some of the darker aspects of the sport in his quest to support his thesis but this is worth reading.
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 | The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing (Sweet Science: Boxing in Literature and History) by Thomas Hauser
Buy new: $20.00 / Used from: $5.94 One of the most important writers writing about boxing today. This one written before he became a somewhat uncritical biographer of Muhammad Ali. Also worth looking at are his three anthologies of essays.
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 | Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship by Dave Kindred
Buy new: $27.00 / Used from: $0.01 Another revisionist (i.e. critical) view of Ali, this one simultaneously attempting to shed a more positive light on Howard Cosell.
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 | The Professional by W.c. Heinz
Buy new: $14.85 / Used from: $7.99 The best novel, explicitly about boxing.
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 | Fat City (California Fiction) by Leonard Gardner
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $5.50 The best novel, in which boxing serves as a kind of setting to tell a larger story.
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 | On Boxing (P.S.) by Joyce Carol Oates
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $7.98 A short meditation on "the manly art" written by a woman, who is best known for her fiction. Is very well written and offers some fresh perspectives on the sport.
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 | The Sweet Science by A.J. Liebling
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $7.49 When boxing writers reach the pinnacle of their craft, they are measured against A.J. Liebling. This collection of essays shows why he was held in such high esteem.
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 | The Hardest Game : McIlvanney on Boxing by Hugh McIlvanney
Buy used from: $9.00 An anthology of the great U.K. sportswriter's boxing articles written over a period of about thirty years.
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 | Writers' fighters and other sweet scientists by John Schulian
Buy used from: $3.00 The American counterpart to McIlvanney. An anthology of articles written in the late seventies to early eighties.
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 | The Greatest Boxing Stories Ever Told: Thirty-Six Incredible Tales from the Ring (Greatest)
Buy new: $11.21 / Used from: $4.71 A mixed bag combining fiction and non-fiction. Some of the pieces here truly live up to the title's billing.
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