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98th out of 100 books
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The Sweet Science
A.J. Liebling's classic New Yorker pieces on the "sweet science of bruising" bring vividly to life the boxing world as it once was. It depicts the great events of boxing's American heyday: Sugar Ray Robinson's dramatic comeback, Rocky Marciano's rise to prominence, Joe Louis's unfortunate decline. Liebling never fails to find the human story behind the fight, a...more
Paperback, 267 pages
Published
September 29th 2004
by North Point Press
(first published January 1949)
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The Sweet Science ranks number one on the Sports Illustrated best books of all time list. The book collects some of A.J. Liebling's boxing essays from The New Yorker . Liebling writes in a dry and sarcastic style, and even without knowing or caring much about boxing in the pre-Cassius Clay era of the 20th century I could still find the book enjoyable. It's kind of like David Foster Wallace's tennis essays. I don't care about tennis, but the writing brings and enjoyment to a topic that I woul...more
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Liebling, A. J. THE SWEET SCIENCE. (1956). ****. If you’re not, or never were a boxing fan, then this book may fall flat on your sensibilities. If you were (or are), however, this book will probably be the best one you will ever read on the sport. Then again, if you’re not, you will at least come to recognize what the average boxing fan sees in the sport and to learn more about the principal players of the early 1950s. Liebling, at the time, was a reporter for the New York Post and a cont...more
I'm a fan of the sports read - check the rest of my titles if you're a doubter. . .this book is somewhat unassailable - even if it is exclusively about boxing in the 40s and 50s. . .
This is a collection of essays about various boxing matches first published in the New Yorker back when pugilists held more of a cultural sway. I think the last boxer who penetrated the popular imagination was Mike Tyson right? Perhaps for all the wrong reasons - but anyway. . .
To call this "...more
This is a collection of essays about various boxing matches first published in the New Yorker back when pugilists held more of a cultural sway. I think the last boxer who penetrated the popular imagination was Mike Tyson right? Perhaps for all the wrong reasons - but anyway. . .
To call this "...more
Probably would have been a little more relevant if I was more familiar with guys like Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano, but Liebling is as erudite about the world of boxing as any snoot might be about history or literature, and brings an intellectual eye to the ring. The first-person accounts of the fights from the crowd is archetypal of the sage sports-fan, who knows enough about a game to not get too excited about passing fads, and to sit quietly and observe, rather than jump around and shout at ...more
A.J. Liebling is one of the best American writers of the 20th Century. The Sweet Science is a classic collection of some of his pieces on boxing as they originally appeared in the New Yorker. You don't need to be a fan of boxing to enjoy this book - only a fan of good writing. It was long out of print and I used to borrow it from the Univ. of Minnesota library to read and re-read it. When it was reissued I bought it immediately. The latest version includes an excellent introduction by Rober...more
This book is old, pre-Cassius Clay, yet Liebling does a fantastic job putting you in the time effortlessly.
Quick review:
The writer goes to all these boxing matches, many times meeting with the fighters ahead of time, and just writes about his experiences. Describes his surroundings, what he does before the fights, after the fights, the best post-fight bars to go to, it all seems very casual.
That being said, I've never read such an articulate sports writer. His last fight with...more
Quick review:
The writer goes to all these boxing matches, many times meeting with the fighters ahead of time, and just writes about his experiences. Describes his surroundings, what he does before the fights, after the fights, the best post-fight bars to go to, it all seems very casual.
That being said, I've never read such an articulate sports writer. His last fight with...more
Rated best sports book of all time by Sports illustrated. An account of boxing in the 1950s. Lieling was a journalist who wrote for the New Yorker. He wrote this book about boxing in the early 1950's when Joe Louis is knocked out by Rocky Marciano. He also writes about sugar Ray Robinson and Archie Moore and dozens of lesser known boxers, their managers, and trainers. This was the golden age of boxing before TV overexposed the sport and drove out most of the boxing clubs that were the incub...more
Sports Illustrated once called this book the “best American sports book of all time.” If one were to rate books based completely on prose and intelligence, you might be able to make that argument. I prefer to make book recommendations based on prose and intelligence certainly, but also on depth and meaning, and on entertainment value and personal appeal (hence my high opinion of The Stolen Child). And on both of those last two points, this book was a profound disappointment to me. The Sweet Sci...more
I never really thought I would read a book about boxing. It's not a subject I'm very interested in or know much about. In fact, right before I started this book, I did a short review of all of the boxers I know by name and realized that I knew most of them from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Awesome.
But when I found out that Sports Illustrated named this book as the best American sports book of all time, I figured I had to give it a read. I'm glad I did.
...more
But when I found out that Sports Illustrated named this book as the best American sports book of all time, I figured I had to give it a read. I'm glad I did.
...more
Wonderful book about boxing in the fifties and earlier times written by an old coot by the name of A J Liebling. It is a series of essays and pieces about specific fights mostly. There was a good bit of Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jersey Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles, and more obscure fighters as well. I loved his style, he was obviously seasoned and writing about something he understood well and loved. He sets a scene really terrificly and never misses out on the inclusion of an interesting ch...more
Fans of exquisite prose stylists like Joseph Mitchell, as well as fans of boxing, should be delighted to see this classic restored to print. Liebling doesn't just write about boxing - he writes about the fans, the managers, the training camps, the saloons he visits before and after the fights, and even the trip to and from the fight locations, along with gripping, blow-by-blow descriptions of ring action. This book is a delight from beginning to end!
Liebling is the least hysterical of sports writers, and the least self-conscious. Unlike the typical overcompensating or otherwise witless sportswriter, his ego never intrudes itself between you and the action; rather the pleasant glow of his personality pervades each piece and arranges it into a friendly narrative.
Liebling's boxers are never porcelain idols (although he greatly admires some of them), nor villainous brutes, nor exaggerated ordinary Joes*. Best of all, though he h...more
Liebling's boxers are never porcelain idols (although he greatly admires some of them), nor villainous brutes, nor exaggerated ordinary Joes*. Best of all, though he h...more
a must for every boxing fan! it shows how it used to be with boxing in the "old times". as i think it's been not very different as it is now. however, who can judge about the past and who will be a prophet for the future ... so it's kind of amusement furthermore as the language in that time was quite different than nowadays and it is wonderful a description of an expert of boxing of that days.
This is a great look at the world in the 1950s framed by the boxing world. Fantastic writing style, great references to Pierce Egan's Boxiana, and just real good stories that make you interested in fights over 50 years old that you may or may not have heard of. If you have even a passing interest in combat sports, sports in general, or even human stories, you would probably enjoy this.
Boxing is one of my secret pleasures. I was fascinated by the author's writing on boxing. I need to find something written by Pierce Egan. He was 19th century British journalist whose writings on boxing Liebling refers to often.
The Earl of Louisanna, Earl Long was a fascinating person. The author described him so well I felt like I had shaken hands with the man.
The Earl of Louisanna, Earl Long was a fascinating person. The author described him so well I felt like I had shaken hands with the man.
A classic of sports writing generally and of boxing specifically. Liebling's first-person, experiential style inspired the so-called New Journalists. Like Hemingway's book about bull-fighting Death in the Afternoon, Liebling's book is about more than boxing -- it's about change, especially that from young to old, champion to the defeated. And it's also about the advent of TV, which was just becoming a must-have household item. Liebling thought it was ruining boxing, but by the final line, he nai...more
I hate boxing. I refuse to see "sport" in two men (and more recently, women), usually of the working class or lower, beating the sh*t out of each other for entertainment. And although this book is considered a classic of sports writing, it didn't change my mind. -cg
He was fat, droll, liked Paris, food, drink, cigars, and the sweet science -boxing. A newspaperman and writer for the New Yorker in it's hey day, Liebling respected the sport enough to to call a bum a bum, pay special homage to the black fighters of his day, and a fine tuned ear for what was said -from the training camps to the bars, taxis to ring side. He's not always politically correct but, he's never mean spirited, especially when it comes to the little guy. You can have the skill, but bo...more
short of actually having attended the fights, liebling's accounts of the bygone boxing era are the next best experience.
On the cover of my copy, there is a quote from David Remnick that describes A.J. Liebling, his voice and character, as "immensely appealing." This was the thing I took away most from the book - that it would have been great to go to a fight or just have a beer with the author.
The book is a collection of essays, each centered around one main bout but usually providing an account of the undercard matches, as well. Most of the essays follow the same format and are written ...more
The book is a collection of essays, each centered around one main bout but usually providing an account of the undercard matches, as well. Most of the essays follow the same format and are written ...more
David Manning
is currently reading it
Great essays on boxing by a very interesting writer.
The best book on boxing I know.
Doodle
added it
No better boxing writer than Liebling.
Read it. Named number one of Sports Illustrated's best sports books ever. A calculatedly aristocratic, witty take on midcentury boxing as cultural, athletic, and aesthetic phenomenon, spiced with references to 19th-c boxing chronicler Pierce Egan and Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun, not to mention sweaty boxers and their corner guys. The snap of the prose may rely on the occasional, um, imagined quotation (though I would imagine that this is harder with something so exhaustively covered), but I rea...more
The short essays and stories on boxing were charming throwback that capture both the colorful language, the grit and the energy of boxing during it’s heyday. I just didn’t love boxing enough to stay in the ring for all 15 chapters. I was KO'ed in the 5th ... or was it the 9th? Someone slapped a 10 count and I passed out.
I wuvs, wuvs, wuvs A.J. Liebling. After reading him, I want to get into a time machine and travel back to mid-20th-century New York City. He's so economical and has a deft dry wit. He defines dry wit for me, I think. Also, I really need the dictionary close by when I read him, which I love.
Matt
is currently reading it
Joe Liebling is the seminal boxing historian whose prose is as smooth as Sugar Ray Robinson, and his lexicon as powerful as Rocky Marciano. Marciano and Robinson are some of the characters that Liebling covers in this collection of essays. Wonderfully done.
An excellent look at the boxing world, and the wide range of characters that inhabit it. Liebling's psychological analysis of fight observers is especially entertaining, and puts his full range of wit, intelligence, and observational ability on display.
A fine prose snapshot of a certain era of boxing.
The patriarchal tone permeating some of the essays can be a bit much, but there's nobody better at putting a literary gloss on the grim action inside the ropes.
The patriarchal tone permeating some of the essays can be a bit much, but there's nobody better at putting a literary gloss on the grim action inside the ropes.
The writing is beautiful and fun, the blow-by-blow suspenseful and transporting, but sadly, in this fleeting sport, it's impossible to care about obscure fights half a century old.
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