I have two of Ochs Hurley set ,very good! Hellers book,excellent. Pollack's Jeffries and the two Johnson volumes.Superb Moyle's Langford. Well researched Toledo's trilogy. Very well written. I enjoyed: The Black Lights,The Life And Crimes Of Don King,Dark Trade,Facing Ali,Pound For Pound,Box On ,The Great White Hopes,The Hurt Business.
I haven't visited this site for quite a while but stumbled across this particular thread today. Love this topic. I found something I wrote on this subject something like 17 years ago. My opinion on some of the books I listed back then has changed quite a bit, but I still love all of the following in terms of the subject matter and from the standpoint of being what I thought were very enjoyable reads: 'No Man Stands Alone' by Barney Ross 1957 'Somebody Up There Likes Me' by Rocky Granziano an Roland Barber 1955 'Wise Guy: James J. Johnston A Rhapsody in Fistics' by Marcus Griffin 1933 'Champions Off Guard' by William Inglis 1932 (Filled with intimate reminiscences of John L. Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzimmons, Kid McCoy, Dempey, Tunney, Jeffries, etc. by a man who not only knew them well, but sparred with many of them. 'In The Day's of the Giants' by W.J. Doherty. 1931. Great insight concerning a number of outstanding fighters. 'Flight of The Hawk, The Aaron Pryor Story' 1996. I just thought this was a very good read. ' 'Muldoon, The Solid Man of Sport' by Edward Van Every 1929. Muldoon provides first hand accounts of many of the major fights involving the greatest fighters of his day, including Peter Jackson, James Corbett, the original Jack Dempsey, Charlie Mitchell, Bob Fitzsimmons, James Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Jess Willard, Jack Dempsey & Gene Tunney. I really enjoyed his insights. 'The Roosevelt That I Know' by Mike Donovan 1909. A terrific read with a ton of great insight. 'The Toy Bulldog' by Mickey Walker. I thought it was a great read. I also remember enjoying reading 'Raging Bull' by Jake LaMotta. So the above remain high in my personal opinion. I'll have to give some thought to what to include among many great books since I noted all of the above way back when. But, in reading thru some of the comments on this thread I will say that there are a number of books written by fellows I greatly admire for the tremendous amount of research and devotion put into those works and individuals like John Ochs, Steve Compton, Adam Pollack immediately spring to mind. The three-volume set produced by John Ochs is outstanding and there's nobody I admire more in terms of their knowledge and devotion to the sport. I'll try and follow this up in the near future with an additional list of books I've read over the past 18 years and would most highly recommend. Gotta run.
Thank you for the post! Really want to check out Champions Off Guard. Think that’ll be my next. I have a really interesting looking book at my bedside called Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Cinema. It has Tunney and Corbett sparring on the cover. Looking forward to digging into it.
Charley Burley, The Life & Hard Times of an Uncrowned Champion Oct 21, 2003 by Allen Rosenfeld Great book. It covers Burley thoroughly but also just a book about fighters of that era. Great! I've heard the other Burley book is very good as well.
A top ten of what i've read for subject matter beginning Pre-WW2. No order. One book per author. Murderers' Row, Toledo In The Ring With Bob Fitzsimmons, Pollack Billy Miske, Moyle Sweet William, O'Toole The Life and Times of Harry Greb, Compton Babyface Goes To Holywood, Gaillimore The Professional, Heinz Charley Burley and the Black Murderers' Row, Otty Charley Burley, the Life and times of an Uncrowned Champ, Rosenfeld In This Corner, Heller
Walcott and Charles books were pretty good, although I would have liked to have seen more description on Walcott’s fights in the 30s
