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31st out of 92 books
—
25 voters
At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing
by
George Kimball (Goodreads Author) ,
John Schulian , Colum McCann (Goodreads Author)
American writers have always been fascinated by the ring—by the primal contest inside the ropes and the crazy carnival world outside them. From back-alley gyms and smoke-filled arenas to star-studded casinos and exotic locales, they have chronicled unforgettable stories about determination and dissipation, great champions and punch-drunk has-beens, colorful entourages and...more
Hardcover, 517 pages
Published
by Library of America
(first published March 3rd 2011)
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Bound: Fighting Words
SunPost Weekly May 12, 2011 | John Hood
http://bit.ly/inKfqs
The Black and White of the Black and Blue and Bloody
Boxing may not be the glory sport it once was back in its heyday — and if last weekend’s Manny Pacquiao/Shane Mosley bout was any indication, it’s not gonna be either. But at its best, and its brightest, there’s something brutally beautiful about the sweet science. No one knows this better than those who throw words around for a living, who find in the fistic not j...more
SunPost Weekly May 12, 2011 | John Hood
http://bit.ly/inKfqs
The Black and White of the Black and Blue and Bloody
Boxing may not be the glory sport it once was back in its heyday — and if last weekend’s Manny Pacquiao/Shane Mosley bout was any indication, it’s not gonna be either. But at its best, and its brightest, there’s something brutally beautiful about the sweet science. No one knows this better than those who throw words around for a living, who find in the fistic not j...more
Although I am not in any sense a boxing fan, I found this anthology highly interesting. Many of America's best writers, not just sportswriters, have been drawn to the fight game. The colorful characters, many of whom never show up in the ring, the courage of fighters who face possible death whenever they step over the ropes, and the ebb and flow of the fights themselves carry an inherent fascination that overcomes, at least for a time, the moral problems related to this sport. Although most of t...more
Nostalgia is an alluring thing, perhaps never more in vogue than today (Mad Men; Instagram's instant feel of vintage without the pesky trouble of waiting years or decades to develop such yearning; authors, songwriters, filmmakers and others casting their minds back towards childhood; etc.). But it's a tricky sensation, this romanticization of the past. I adored At The Fights as a reading experience, as a document of boxing history, and as a reminder of sorts of when long form, literate, erudite,...more
I appreciated the book's focus on a wide range of eras and weight classes. It starts off with Jack London's coverage of Jack Johnson's fight with the Great White Hope and takes us all the way through to Tyson and de la Hoya. While enjoying the breadth of material, I felt that the essays/short stories that were selected could have been, on average, of much higher quality. Some are very good and others took forever to slog through, even though no piece probably extends beyond 20 pages or so. If yo...more
This is a collection of essays about boxing from the turn of the century to today. What is most striking is how much has been lost by the shrinkage of newspapers. The level or writing that existed in sports columns is remarkable and it has simply been lost in all but a few papers. But the greatness is captured in these pages and it brings the boxing and the characters, in all their glory, in to sharp focus. I loved this book. Highly recommend it for anyone who has the least interest in boxing.
Excellent! A lot if it very funny and extraordinary insights into the worlf of boxing.
May 21, 2013
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The 1986 recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism, George Kimball spent a quarter-century as a sports columnist for the Boston Herald before retiring in 2005. A veteran of nearly title bouts, Kimball has covered boxing all over the world since the eras of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and was the only journalist to cover every fight of Marvelous Marvin Hagler's midd...more
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