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Bernard O'Mahoney

From Salford to St Louis, former professional boxer Wayne Barker fought every man who ever challenged him. In this brutally honest account of his eventful life, Wayne recounts how his parents left him in the care of the travelling community, where he learned to fight and journeyed throughout Britain and Ireland to take on opponents for cash. 
 
After being charged with attempting to murder a child killer, Wayne fled to America, where he found work in the gymnasiums of New York sparring with the likes of world champion Wilfred Benítez. His ability in the ring was noticed by promoter Bobby Gleason, whose gym had been graced by legendary boxers such as Jake LaMotta. Gleason set up a fight in Caracas between Wayne and former super middleweight world champion Fulgencio Obelmejias ('Fully Obel'). 
 
Wayne’s past eventually caught up with him and he was deported to Britain, where he served time in prison. He returned to the streets to earn a living from bare-knuckle fighting, before becoming a trainer and running a gym. Cancer claimed his life in 2012.

Wayne Barker: Born to Fight

The Extraordinary Story of a Bare-Knuckle Boxer

Ken Gorman

Ken Gorman has gathered together a superb collection of fight reports, personal testimonies and reminiscences from some of the greatest boxers the world has ever seen. Spanning over four decades, this book features forty breathtaking encounters. Was there ever a more stunning victory than that of Steve Robinson, who won a world title with only two days' notice? Was anything more astonishing than the triumph of Lloyd Honeyghan, or more shocking than the punch from hell that made the world aware of the potent threat of Lennox Lewis? What about that incredible first round when Marvin Hagler met Tommy Hearns in Las Vegas, or the awesome raw power displayed in the famous Rumble in the Jungle?

My Greatest Fight

Frank Maloney

Kevin Brennan

A Journey From Peckham To Las Vegas

No Baloney

Jimmy Stockin

Martin King

Martin Knight

Jimmy Stockin: The Life Of A Bare Knuckled Gypsy Warrior

On The Cobbles

John Burrowes

'Before Benny, nobody from the Gorbals became World Champion of anything...' 
 
Benny Lynch was Scotland's first World Boxing Champion and the most talked-about British sportsman of his generation. In fact, many consider him to be the finest fighter the country has ever produced. 
 
Benny is the amazing account of how Lynch battled his way above and beyond the 'fifty-shilling men' of his home town of Glasgow to become the champion of Scotland, Britain, Europe and the world, earning a reputation as one of the greatest pugilists of all time. But this absorbing biography also details how his career sadly came to a premature halt because of Lynch's alcoholism, which destroyed his health and led to him being abandoned by his countless followers. It took his tragic death at the age of only 33 to restore the fallen idol to legendary status again. 
 
The gritty reality of the daily grind of life in the Depression-era Gorbals is captured vividly in this remarkable story of the rise and tragic fall of a fighting legend.

Benny

The Life And Times Of A Fighting Legend

Derick Allsop

Few sports polarise public opinion as boxing does. Some contend that it is repugnant and barbaric, for others a legitimate, regulated contest of skill, strength and willpower. What cannot be denied is that the fight game has produced some of sport's greatest icons. Many more are content to make a decent living or at least supplement their income by stepping into the ring. 
 
Fighting Chance gets up close with those involved in everyday British boxing. It goes behind the scenes at shows and into gyms to meet champions such as Ricky Hatton, starry-eyed young men dreaming of world titles, hard-nosed pros surviving another pay day and veteran trainers who have seen it all and sometimes wish they hadn't. Many of them say this brutal trade has saved them from a life of crime and drugs, and given them an opportunity to find self-esteem. All recognise the possible cost - Paul Ingles, for example, almost lost his life in the ring - but maintain it is a risk worth taking. 
 
Martin Jolley attempted suicide in his darkest hour but survived and sought a kind of refuge as a journeyman boxer, taking fights at short notice and then returning to his day job as a printer. Michael Jennings' brother was killed by an addiction to drugs and he is convinced the sport has spared him the same tragic fate. Others, however, are always tormented by their demons. Michael Gomez, once held on a murder charge, was hailed as a future world champion until he went off the rails, plunging his private life into turmoil and leaving his career on the brink. Brian Hughes, one of the best-known and most successful trainers in the country, admits his love of boxing has been eroded by the 'stinking' side of the business. 
 
Often shocking, sometimes humorous, always gripping, Fighting Chance is an odyssey through a world few will have encountered. It gives a candid insight and many of its compelling characters.

Fighting Chance

Winners and Losers in the Ultimate Risk Business

Patrick Myler

Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling and the Bitter Propaganda War

Ring of Hate: The Brown Bomber and Hitler's Hero

Thomas Myler

In Boxing's Hall of Shame, Thomas Myler tells the inside stories of the real fight game. He reveals the sport's heroes and villains, mobsters and fixers, its shame and sorrows, providing the reader with a ringside seat at boxing's greatest and most controversial contests along the way. 
 
This no-holds-barred volume includes the enraged Mike Tyson taking a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear; Roberto Duran's baffling retirement against Sugar Ray Leonard; the Riddick Bowe-Andrew Golota fiasco that ended in an ugly full-scale riot; Sonny Liston - whose mobster background was not unknown to boxing authorities - going down under Muhammad Ali's phantom punch; and Jake LaMotta's botched dive against Billy Fox, which turned the 'Raging Bull' into boxing's bad boy overnight. 
 
Boxing's Hall of Shame sensationally revisits the boxing scandals, the fixed fights and the powerful influence of the underworld, taking the reader behind the scenes of the glove sport to reveal the shady underbelly of boxing through the ages.

Boxing's Hall of Shame

The Fight Game's Darkest Days

Bob Mee

The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King

Liston and Ali

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

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