"The Sweet Science" A.J Liebling book.

Great book, hands down. And at least the best boxing book ever written. I don't read a lot of books regarding other sports.

However, as a reader of quite a lot of fiction and history and periodicals, I find it very telling how often Liebling is quoted or referenced by writers outside of the world of sports. I know I read an article this week in the NYT or on Slate that quoted him, without calling him a sports or boxing writer.

 

I own this book and thought it was a great read. Like Robert Anasi says in the introduction, it's tragic that Liebling didn't live to see Cassius Clay fight Sonny Liston and become Muhammad Ali

 

I've wanted to get this book for ages. Liebling says some great **** about boxing.

 

I read this book last year and thoroughly enjoyed, some great pieces in there

 

i'm fairly certain i've got this somewhere and read it years ago.does it cover jimmy carter-aurojo fight?

 

One of the great boxing books ,written by a great writer.I wouldnt let my copy out of my house!I once had Larry Gains auto biography"The Impossible Dream",lent it to a "friend",never saw it again,once bitten.Other good books ,Once they Heard the Cheers by WC Heinz,in fact anything by him is great,In This Corner ,by Pete Heller,is terrific,biographies by Randy Roberts on Dempsey and Johnson are both good too.

 

It's a work of art. Liebling and Mailer have done so much for boxing. They inject it with philosophy and class and have really made it something intellectual and almost spiritual. Boxing = Life

 

Journalists who were also great writer's used to write extensively about boxing, not just sportsjournalists. Mencken, Liebling, Gallico, Rice, Gallico, and Plimpton to name a few. Now there aren't even any great sportsjournalists left, and they barely write about boxing at all.

Great novelists, poets, and playwrights like Hazlitt, Lord Byron, Jack London, George Bernard Shaw, Baldwin, and Mailer used to write about the sweet science.

Ah what the hell, at least we can still look forward to Rocky 7.

 

Joyce Carol Oates- the overly prodigious fiction writer- also wrote this excellent book, On Boxing.

http://www.amazon.com/Boxing-Joyce-Carol-Oates/dp/0880013850

 

Sports Illustrated called it the greatest book about sport...EVER.

It's a magnificent read, and some of the passages (particularly in reference to the Marciano-Moore fight) are nothing short of poetic.

 

Bumping this in hope that it catches the attention of some boxing fan who hasn’t read it so they will, perhaps, be inspired and introduce themselves to the finest wordsmith who ever wrote about boxing.

 

I also recommend you read this. Terrific read.

 

Agree with all of the praise for this great writer. How can you resist a chapter entitled
The Melting Middleweight!
Don’t miss his other collection, A Neutral Corner, Chapters covering 1952 - 63.

 

Yes , just checked it. Chapter is The Boy from South Main Street.