Combat Memoirs

"Iron" Mike Tyson was one of the most feared opponents to ever step into a boxing ring. With unbelievable power that floored or stopped all but two of his first 28 professional opponents, Tyson began an unprecedented ascent to the top of the boxing world, becoming the youngest champion in history with a second-round TKO over Trevor Berbick, the last man to box and defeat Muhammad Ali.

By the age of 24, Big Joe Egan had over 80 boxing wins and seven Irish titles and was a Golden Gloves champion. A mean body puncher with a durable chin, he went the distance with Lennox Lewis and beat future WBA champion Bruce Seldon. Encouraged by Floyd Patterson to try his luck in the USA, Joe joined "Iron" Mike Tyson’s training camp in the Catskill Mountains with the great Cus D’Amato. Joe became like a brother to Mike, who described him as the Toughest White Man on the Planet. Big Joe Egan is a gripping, entertaining, and uncompromisingly emotional account.

The Art of the Straight Line captures the energy of Lou Reed's worlds of Tai Chi, music, and meditation. It was edited by his wife, the artist Laurie Anderson. Lou Reed was a musician, singer, songwriter, poet, and founding member of the legendary rock band the Velvet Underground. He collaborated with many artists, from Andy Warhol and John Cale to Robert Wilson and Metallica. Reed had a groundbreaking solo career that spanned five decades until his death in 2013. Reed was also an accomplished martial artist whose practice began in the 1980s.

Through his experience of boxing - learning to get hit and to hit back; wrestling with the camaraderie of the gym; confronting the betrayals and strength of his own body - McBee examines the weight of male violence, the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes and the limitations of conventional masculinity. A wide-ranging exploration of gender in our society, Amateur is ultimately a story of hope, as McBee traces a way forward: a new masculinity, inside the ring and out of it.

Lost in the annals of boxing is the sport's true Cinderella story. James J. Braddock, dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon, was a once promising light heavyweight for whom a string of losses in the ring and a broken right hand happened to coincide with the Great Crash of 1929.

William "Haystacks" Calhoun is an instantly recognizable name to any wrestling fan. A legend in his own time, Haystacks popularized the country-bumpkin wrestler shtick and used his personality to win big both at the box-office and in the hearts of fans. Behind the overalls though, was a man who as a child had an enormous appetite and few prospects until he discovered the sport that would change his life - professional wrestling.

The story of Jeff Horn is like a fairy tale. Written with award-winning author, journalist and boxing aficionado Grantlee Kieza, The Hornet is the tale of a boy who, slapped around by bullies, saw through tears in his eyes a vision of himself as a hero, a champ, someone other people might one day look up to. Horn took up boxing after being tormented as a teenager. Fast-forward a dozen years and the former bullied schoolboy - now humble schoolteacher - became world boxing champion on 2nd July 2017 at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.

Sa vie exemplaire, son amour des siens, sa fidélité sans faille aux valeurs de la République, son attachement à la cause des femmes ont fait de Simone Veil un modèle de ce que doit être une personnalité politique de premier rang. A mesurer l’immensité des épreuves qu’elle a connues et surmontées, on comprend pourquoi tant de respect, d’admiration et d’affection entourent Simone Veil, la “mère courage” de notre génération. Robert Badinter....

Tina's struggle continues in The Terrorist Maker. Surrounded by murderers her only chance to survive is to start using her gift. His gaze is stony, his eyelids at half-mast. And I can’t look at him at all, which is why I’m lying with my eyes closed. I’m afraid to see something frightening in these eyes. But I feel that I need to look. Otherwise, this ‘frightening thing’ inside him will suffocate me. I realize, that if I don’t do this, I’ll be left to die exactly like that man, about whom they later simply forgot. Therefore, however frightening and difficult it might be, I’m ...

Sometimes the hardest battle is the one after the war. As one of the soldiers on the front line of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Lieutenant Scotti was taught that weakness is what gets you killed: No hesitation, focus your energies on your objective, and complete the mission. Upon returning from war, Scotti approached his new life the same way. He ignored the creeping depression and numbness he called "The Blue Cascade" and charged ahead toward his goal to get an MBA, secure a high-paying finance job, and retire young and rich.

In this work of sporting and social history we have a biography of Canadian-born, Boston-raised boxer George Dixon (1870–1908), the first Black world champion of any sport and the first Black world boxing champion in any division. George Dixon: The Short Life of Boxing’s First Black World Champion, 1870–1908 chronicles the life of the most consequential Black athlete of the nineteenth century. Yet despite his triumphs, Dixon has been lost to history, overshadowed by Black athletes whose activism against white supremacy far exceeded his own.

Picture a man, he’s tall, not excessively so, yet as wide as he is high. This man is a spitting and growling street brawler; a tank full of ready-to-blow, muscle-fuelled aggression. Imagine, if you will, the comic-book style Bulldog of Great British stamp. Well, there you have him! The prototypical face taken from the terraces of an ’80s football fan’s rolled-up newspaper cosh; a poster-boy of malevolence left over from Thatcher’s post-punk Britain.

For just over 30 years Al Bernstein has been one of the most recognizable and respected sportscasters in America. In those three decades, the “voice of boxing” reported the funny, poignant, and bizarre events that helped shape sports television, ESPN, boxing, Las Vegas, and Showtime. With an eclectic cast of characters that includes every big name in boxing, including Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather, and Manny Pacquiao, as well as such names in the entertainment world as Rodney Dangerfield, Sylvester Stallone, Russell Crowe, Jerry Lewis, and Jack Nicholson, Bernstein's memoir will have you in stitches.

You're about to discover the incredibly inspirational story of UFC superstar Georges St-Pierre. If you're reading this, then you must be a GSP fan, like so many others. As a fan, you must wonder how this man is so talented and want to know more about him. Georges is considered one of the greatest MMA fighters in the world, and it's been an honor to be able to watch him fight throughout his career. This book will reveal to you much about Georges' story and the many accomplishments throughout his career.

Frank Warren has spent 40 years working with boxing's most colourful and controversial characters. In his long-awaited autobiography, he reflects on the battles he had to win to reach the top and remain there, not least the battle to stay alive after he was shot at point-blank range in an attempted assassination in 1989. In Frank and Fearless, Warren pulls no punches, taking us behind the scenes into a world of blood and sweat, and intense relationships that all too often end in tears.

Part autobiography, part travel narrative, Tunnel Visions: Memoirs of a Mixed Martial Arts Champion is the true story about a young African American’s dream to become an MMA champion in a foreign land. The author Ryan Bow narrates his journey to Japan, Thailand, and other international destinations. His amazing tale will challenge your concept of humanity and make you question your priorities.

Many regard Muhammad Ali simply as 'The Greatest' heavyweight of all time. Others admire his battles against racial injustice and religious intolerance. A few just call him 'Dad'. They are all here in this book - 50 men and women of note coming together to celebrate the man Sports Illustrated crowned 'Sportsman of the Century': Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer; Billy Crystal, actor; Sir Henry Cooper, former British and European heavyweight champion; Bert Sugar, journalist and boxing historian; and more.

While lifting weights in the Seldon Jackson College gymnasium on a rainy autumn night, Jaed Coffin heard the distinctive whacking sound of sparring boxers down the hall. A year out of college, he had been biding his time as a tutor at a local high school in Sitka, Alaska, without any particular life plan. That evening, Coffin joined a ragtag boxing club. For the first time, he felt like he fit in.

At London 2012, Nicola Adams made history. The flyweight boxer - nicknamed the smiling assassin - became the first ever woman to win an Olympic Gold medal for boxing. In Rio 2016, with the nation cheering her on, she did it all over again. Growing up in Leeds, Nicola stumbled into boxing in her local sports centre while her mum was at aerobics. Age 13 she decided that she would win an Olympic Gold: nobody was going to stop her.

In Muhammad Ali, Michael Ezra considers the boxer who calls himself “The Greatest” from a new perspective. Ezra’s incisive study examines the relationships between Ali’s cultural appeal and its commercial manifestations. Citing examples of the boxer’s relationship to the Vietnam War and the Nation of Islam - which serve as barometers of his “public moral authority” - Muhammad Ali analyzes the difficulties of creating and maintaining these cultural images, as well as the impact these themes have on Ali’s meaning to the public.