Any books you guys would recommend to a young fan?

[Bodyshot3]

Don't limit yourself to those eras...some of the best, most insightful reads cover the modern era when some excellent journalists had better access to the fighters and did not have to worry about someone like Frankie Carbo arriving with a baseball bat on their doorstep.

Donald McRae's 'Dark Trade' is a shocking, beautiful read and the guy still does big features for Boxing News.

Norman Mailer's book...simply entitiled The Fight covers Ali v Foreman and is still in my opinion the definitive boxing book. We're talking about a world-renowned novelist, essayist and journalist who was also a fight-fan.

The sheer craziness of the location and the way he explains how Ali began to get the terrifying Foreman to doubt himself, turned a whole country into his supporters and the cast of odd characters involved in the fight is second-to-none. Don King is dissected like a piece of pond life; enough said!

[SlySlickSmooth]

I'll probably pick up the Ultimate Encylopedia of Boxing as my first book, thanks for all the suggestions guys.

[Anthony342]

Yeah thanks. I'm going to check out some of those too. What about Joyce Carol Oates' On Boxing or that Harry Greb book that just came out? Recommended?

[PhilPhilly]

Charli Magri - champagne Magri
Lovely, short and sweet biography. One of the books at the club I decided to take home and read

[Feint]

Love this topic. Some of the better ones I have read:

King of the World by David Remnick. The best biography I have ever read about Ali’s early career. A lot of good insight and also exposes some of the misconceptions people still believe to this day about the man.

The Last Great Fight by Joe Layden. Great background of James “Buster” Douglas’s upset over Mike Tyson. A lot of information about Tyson I never knew before. A very quick and entertaining read.

Unforgivable Blackness by Geoffrey C. Ward. The most honest and fair portrayal of one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. There will never be a better book ever written about him and the social background in which he fought.

John L. Sulivan and His America. The definitive biography on Sulivan and the early history of the sport that we now know today.

Tuney by Jack Cavanaugh. This is not only a great boxing book, it is one of my favorite books of all time. Not only does it cover Tunney and his career, it also gives a great in-depth history of Dempsey and Greb. It’s really an amazing story of three boxers and the characters that surrounded them. I would love to see this book made into a movie one day.

[Rockin']

Read 'Beyond the Ring' by Jeffrie T Sammons. Easily the best and most informative book that you could ever read about the sport..

I highly recommend it (no pun intended).......... Rockin'

[AlisGoldDoco]

Facing Ali
The View from Ringside
Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano
Ali and Liston: The Boy Who Would Be King and the Ugly Bear

[rightsideup]

I have two books on Ray Robinson one he co-wrote and one showing a little bit of a dark side.
Thomas Hauser's book on Ali is very Good
Hands of Stone is very good
I have a book on Gene Tunney that has chapter's on Dempsey and Greb
Sugar Ray Leonard's book is very good
There are many book's on Mike Tyson
Four Kings about leonard , duran, haggler, and hearn's is very good
I also have a book on sonny liston
I have read a book about sam langford

[Panamaniac]

Hands of Stone: The Life and Legend of Roberto Duran - Christian Giudice

Boxing's Greatest Fighters - Bert Randolph Sugar

[- Ram Raid -]

Yeah thanks. I'm going to check out some of those too. What about Joyce Carol Oates' On Boxing or that Harry Greb book that just came out? Recommended?

I'd say that On Boxing is a must have in any collection of works on the sport.

For anyone who isn't really a big reader at the moment and wants a starting point to get into it, I'd highly recommend The Hurt Business: American Writers On Boxing edited by George Kimball & John Schulian.

In essence the pieces that are collected within showcase the intertwined histories of boxing and American sports journalism. It starts with Jack London's Piece on Johnson Vs. Jeffries and finishes with Champion at Twilight, Carlo Rotella's profile of Larry Holmes fighting on well passed his prime.

In between there are pieces by H. L. Mencken, Paul Gallico, W. C. Hienze, Red Smith, John Lardner, A. J. Liebling, Jimmy Cannon, Gay Talese, Barney Nagler, George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, Larry Merchant, Budd Schulberg, Pat Putman, Thomas Hauser, George Kimball, Gerald Early, Joyce Carol Oates, David Remnick and many, many more of America's top notch writers.

It's a masterful collection and because it's made up of individual pieces you don't have to commit to reading too much at a time.

The Muhammed Ali Reader edited by Gerald Early and McIlvanney On Boxing by Hugh McIlvanney, though more specific, are also collections that I'd highly recommend.