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Harry Crews

A favourite of long-time Harry Crews fans, The Knockout Artist (1988) portrays Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a young boxer from rural Georgia whose champion rise is diverted by a vulnerability, or gift, for knocking himself unconscious. 
 
As he begins to exploit his talents, the notorious Knockout Artist journeys into the New Orleans underworld and meets characters who have long since checked their morals at the door. The unforgettable climax shows Crews at his virtuoso best, when Eugene confronts his truth, and sets out to claim his freedom and win his own self-respect.

The Knockout Artist

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

Frank Maloney

Kevin Brennan

From the streets of Peckham to the neon-lit strip of Las Vegas, Frank Maloney's life has been a roller-coaster ride that even he finds hard to believe at times. The Cockney-born son of Irish parents, who once harboured thoughts of becoming a priest, instead went on to manage Lennox Lewis for 12 years and help him become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.In No Baloney, Frank lifts the lid on the world of big-time boxing and its household names, and gives a remarkable account of his time with Lewis, revealing stories and offering opinions that can only come from a true insider. He also gives an insight into the way money, sex, drugs, politics, bribery and corruption have played their part in the sport. But Maloney's story is not just about boxing. It is also about one of life's characters, whose colourful story is told with a brand of humour and emotion that makes it compelling reading. Before settling on a career in boxing, he tried his hand at being a jockey, street trader, chef, pub landlord, cab driver and greengrocer. Along the way there have been girls, fights, a murder investigation and a broken marriage, but through it all there has also been a determination to succeed against the odds. Once dubbed a 'Mental Midget' and 'Pugilistic Pygmy' by Don King, Frank Maloney has gone on to have the last laugh over the flamboyant American promoter and over those who believed he would fail. For, above all, No Baloney is the story of a man who has been lucky enough to experience the kind of life he could not have imagined in his wildest dreams all those years ago in south-east London - and Maloney has made sure he's lived it to the full.

No Baloney

A Journey From Peckham To Las Vegas

John Kavanagh

Growing up in Dublin, John Kavanagh was a skinny kid who was frequently bullied. After suffering a bad beating when he intervened to help a man who was being attacked, he decided he had to learn to defend himself. Before long, he was training fighters in a tiny shed, and promoting the earliest mixed-martial arts events in Ireland. And then, a cocky young lad called Conor McGregor walked into his gym ... 
 
In Win or Learn, John Kavanagh tells his own remarkable life story - which is at the heart of the story of the extraordinary explosion of MMA in Ireland and globally. Kavanagh has become a guru to young men and women seeking to master the arts of combat. And as the trainer of the world's most charismatic male MMA star, he has become a magnet for talented fighters from all over the world. Kavanagh's portrait of Conor McGregor - who he has seen in his lowest moments, as well as in his greatest triumphs - is a revelation. 
 
What emerges from Win or Learn is a remarkable portrait of ambition, discipline, and persistence in the face of years and years of disappointment. It is a must read for every MMA fan - but also for anyone who wants to understand how to follow a dream and realize a vision.

Win or Learn

MMA, Conor McGregor and Me: A Trainer's Journey

Davis Miller

Collected here for the first time are the best of Davis Miller's essays and memoirs.  The volume contains his celebrated trilogy of award-winning Muhammad Ali pieces, including the classic 'My Dinner with Ali', together with a provocative new essay called 'The Yin and the Yang of Muhammad Ali'.  There are also two pieces about Miller's unusual relationship with another boxer, 'Sugar' Ray Leonard, and he continues to explore the Bruce Lee phenomenon - as he did in his acclaimed bestseller The Tao of Bruce Lee. The Zen of Muhammad Ali tells us about fighting, living, friendship and love.  The pieces are arranged - each with an illuminating new note - to form a unique and haunting book.

The Zen Of Muhammad Ali

and Other Obsessions

Jon Hotten

The Years of the Locust is a true story of intrigue, paranoia, murder and money set in the shimmering cities of America's South in the 1990s. It's the story of two men who never should have met, and when they did, one killed the other. There are walk-on parts for Don King, George Foreman, the FBI and a fallen NFL hero, yet it's the two central characters - sociopathic door-to-door-sales-king-turned-boxing-promoter Rick 'Elvis' Parker and his loyal, naive and ultimately incorruptible fighter Tim Anderson - that make this story extraordinary and unforgettable. 
 
It would be impossible to invent a man like Rick Parker, a freakishly fat ginger-haired giant who modelled his personal style on Elvis Presley and wanted to become the next Don King. Don himself told Rick how to do it - find a white man who could become the heavyweight champion of the world. Then Rick met Tim Anderson, a handsome, funny former baseball pro - was he the fighter to take Parker all the way? Rick left a trail of fixed fights and violent mayhem all across the South, but his dream stayed out of reach. By the end of his reign of terror Tim would be broke, poisoned and facing the hardest choice of all. And now Tim is doing life without parole in a state prison, and Rick - well, Rick's dead. 
 
By juxtaposing the lives of these two extraordinary men, The Years of the Locust turns a remarkable, riotous true-crime story into a profound examination of chance, choices and remorse - one that's scary, sad and blackly, bleakly funny.

The Years of the Locust

A True Story of Murder, Money and Mayhem in the Last Age of Boxing

Chris Jones

365 days, 7 fights, 4 Kos, 3 decisions, 2 scandals, 1 missing ear, 1 wild yearChris Jones did not know what he was getting himself into.  He looked for a sport to call his own when he was hired as a rookie reporter.  He found boxing.  Over the course of the year that followed, the dark trade would creep deeply inside him, set his heart pumping one minute and break it the next.  Make him stare at violence and dare him not to flinch. In Falling Hard, Jones proves himself to the latest in a line of lyricists to be drawn into boxing's storied corruption plagued world.  He gets dressed down by Don King, meets the troubled guy who found Evander Holyfield's ear, goes to Muhammed Ali's birthday party, and witnesses Naseem Hamed explode while Mike Tyson implodes.  Falling Hard is in equal measure victory and defeat - an intoxicating mix that leaves Jones addicted to boxing's special brand of pain. Humorous, infuriating and suspenseful, this is boxing distilled to its essence by sports writing's brightest star.

Falling Hard

George Plimpton

From the author of Paper Lion 
 
Stepping into the ring against light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore, George Plimpton pauses to wonder what ever induced him to become a participatory journalist. Bloodied but unbowed, he holds his own in the bout – and brings back this timeless book on boxing and its devotees, among them Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer. 
 
 
Shadow Box is one of Plimpton’s most engaging portraits of professional sport seen through the eyes of an inquisitive and astute hopeful. From the gym, the locker room, the ringside, and even in the harsh glare of the ring itself, Plimpton documents what it truly means to be a boxer in some of the finest writing of his career.

Shadow Box

An Amateur in the Ring

Kevin Mitchell

Gangsters have been around boxing for ever. When boxing took hold in Madison Square Garden just after the First World War, a new wave of criminals moved in: the Mob. It was then that Prohibition gave street legitimacy to organised crime right across America; and by the time Joe Louis arrived to breathe excitement through a country ravaged by the Great Depression, the wise guys were firmly entrenched at ringside. Mike Jacobs, the grizzled boss of boxing at the Garden for nearly twenty years, made the Brown Bomber the biggest sports star in the world, and a string of romantic writers ensured this would be remembered as the fight game's golden age. They mingled with underworld heavies along a strip of New York pavement near the Garden known only as Jacobs Beach. 
 
Kevin Mitchell's gripping book is the unsanitised story of those times and that place, of Rat Pack cool and the fading of the Mob's peculiar glamour, brilliantly told through the eyes of the men who were there.

Jacobs Beach

The Mob, the Garden, and the Golden Age of Boxing

Bob Mee

Sport can offer catharsis in times of crisis, but not this time. Liston was a mob fighter with a criminal past, and rumours were spreading that Clay was not just a noisy, bright-eyed boy blessed with more than his share of the craziness of youth, but a believer in a shadowy cult: the Nation of Islam. Instead of a hero and a villain, boxing had served up two bad guys. 
 
Against this backdrop of political instability, of a country at war with itself, in a time when ordinary African American people were still being maimed and killed for the smallest acts of defiance, Liston and Clay sought out their own individual destinies. 
 
Liston and Ali follows the contrasting paths these two men took, from their backgrounds in Arkansas and Kentucky through to that sixteen-month period in 1964 and 1965 when the story of the world heavyweight championship centred on them and all they stood for. Using original source material, it explores a riveting chapter in sporting history with fresh insight and in rare detail.

Liston and Ali

The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King

George Kimball

Sports fans and boxing enthusiasts alike will love this compelling study of the resurgence of boxing in the early 1980s - and the four 'greats' who effected that change. Four Kings captures the contests, fighters and the period with a wonderful perception and vividly conjures up those by-gone smoky and raucous ringside nights in Vegas... 
 
'Thrilling, insightful and often humourous' - The Independent 
'A flawless and singular account of fights that remain potent and important decades after the final bell' - Irish Times 
'A fascinating read' - ***** Reader review 
'Very rarely is a non-fiction book so riveting it's almost impossible to put down but this is one of those books' - ***** Reader review 
'Beautifully written and absolutely fascinating' - ***** Reader review 
'Outstanding' - ***** Reader review 
 
***************************************************************************** 
By the late 1970s, boxing had lapsed into a moribund state and interest in it was on the wane. In 1980, however, the sport was resuscitated by a riveting series of bouts involving an improbably dissimilar quartet: Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvellous Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran. 
 
Like Ali and Frazier, Dempsey and Tunney, Robinson and LaMotta, the 'Four Kings of the Ring' brought out the best in each other, producing unprecedented multi-million-dollar gates along the way. Each of the nine bouts between the four men was memorable in its own way and at least two of them - Leonard-Hearns in 1981 and Hagler-Hearns in 1985 - are commonly included on any list of the greatest fights of all time. The controversial outcome of another - the 1987 Leonard-Hagler fight - remains the subject of heated debates amongst fans to this day. 
 
In Four Kings, award-winning journalist George Kimball documents the remarkable effect they had on the sport and argues that we will never see their likes again. Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran didn't set out to save boxing from itself in the post-Ali era, but somehow they managed to do so.

Four Kings

The intoxicating and captivating tale of four men who changed the face of boxing from award-winning sports writer George Kimball

Budd Schulberg

Ringside is a bountiful collection of the most memorable boxing stories by legendary fight-game writer Budd Schulberg. 
 
 Schulberg takes us all the way back to an epic bare-knuckle contest in England 200 years ago; draws a revealing portrait of 'Uncle' Mike Jacobs, the promotional impresario of boxing in its golden age; expertly places Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali in the social context of their times; brings followers up to date on the careers of the great names of recent decades - Tyson, Holyfield, de la Hoya, Hopkins, 'Chico' Corrales; and much more. 
 
 Throughout this book, Schulberg provides the perfect blend of great writing on great fighters, laced with a realistic sense of boxing's wrongs as well as its rights. With prose that sparkles with authority and insight, Ringside is a main event in the world of sports literature.

Ringside

A Treasury of Boxing Reportage

Nick Tosches

"[Night Train] is as much about Liston and boxing as it is about the darkest side of the American Dream. Liston's story comes alive though clean, evocative prose, hard facts and lyrical, occasionally breathtaking writing"  Time Out

Night Train

A Biography of Sonny Liston

Muhammad Ali

Hana Yasmeen Ali

In this poignant, moving book, Muhammad Ali shares the beliefs he has come to live by and which he has passed on to his children. Some of the wisdom is his own; some comes from the teachings of true Islam, from his spiritual studies, and from people he has met in the course of his extraordinary life. Here, as he recalls his early days as a young warrior in Louisville, Kentucky, and his meteoric rise to fame as Heavyweight Champion of the World, a title he won three times, he tells of the many battles he won and lost, both inside and outside the ring and his conversion to Islam in the 1960s. Now, working tirelessly as a worldwide ambassador for peace, he talks of the damage caused when religion is used to tear people apart, the essential need for unity in this troubled world, and how his faith sustains him on this, the most important journey of his life - the journey to forgiveness and peace. Together with his daughter Hana, in this timely spiritual memoir Ali draws upon his rich reserve of notes, tapes and journals, and writes with compassion, warmth and, of course, humour on how we can liberate mind, body and spirit when we pursue and embrace the one essential truth - love.

The Soul Of A Butterfly

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

Mark Kriegal

On a defining evening of the 1980s, Donald Trump hosted celebrities and high rollers in a Jersey Shore town to witness 21-year-old Mike Tyson knock out Michael Spinks in just 91 seconds, earning more than the annual payrolls of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics combined. 
 
Only eight years earlier, Tyson, a troubled child from Brooklyn, was taken under the wing of boxing legend Cus D’Amato in upstate New York. Their story of mutual redemption captivated novelists, screenwriters, and the emerging cable TV industry. Tyson became HBO’s leading man long before Tony Soprano. 
 
Despite the immense success, Tyson's story was more complex and darker than it appeared. Over the decades, he has been villainized, lionized, and fetishized—but never fully humanized until now. Acclaimed biographer Mark Kriegel, who first encountered Tyson as a young reporter, explores Tyson's life through what he survived rather than whom he knocked out. 
 
Tyson, often compared to Jack Dempsey, was more akin to Sonny Liston—Black, feared, and expected to die young. What made Liston a pariah made Tyson a touchstone for a generation influenced by hip hop and gunfire. Kriegel captures not just Tyson’s rise but his profound impact on the American psyche.

Baddest Man

The making of Mike Tyson

Tyson Fury

AS SEEN ON NETFLIX'S AT HOME WITH THE FURYS 
 
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AND AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR 
 
** TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR ** 
DOUBLE WINNER: BEST AUTOBIOGRAPHY &amp; BEST OVERALL SPORTS BOOK OF 2020 
 
________________________________ 
'Incredible stories... you don't have to be a boxing fan to enjoy it' SCOTT MILLS, BBC RADIO 1 
'One of sport's most heart-warming stories' SUNDAY TIMES, SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 
'A must-read for any boxing fan.' WORLD BOXING NEWS 
'If you know someone who is a fan of the People's Champion then they'll love this.' TALKSPORT XMAS GIFT GUIDE 
 
The extraordinary story of the rise and fall and rise again of Tyson Fury... 
 
THE GYPSY KING. 
 
A Manchester lad from Irish Traveller stock, born three months premature and weighing just a pound at birth, Tyson (named after his father's boxing hero) grew up to become one of the most unlikely heavyweight champions in history. This 'dream come true' soon turned to nightmare, however, as alcohol and cocaine abuse took hold and Tyson was stripped of his titles. What followed was the darkest moment of his life - detailed in this book for the first time - in which he came within seconds of ending everything. 
 
THE PEOPLE'S CHAMPION. 
 
Like all the greatest stories, though, there is redemption and Tyson defies all the odds and literally drags himself to his feet. 10 million people around the globe watched Fury fight Wilder in the biggest fight of the boxing calendar. Speaking candidly about his struggles with mental health, this is Tyson Fury as you have never seen him before. 
 
A BRITISH ICON. 
________________________________ 
 
Behind the Mask is an unflinching story from the greatest boxer of our time and a man who has demonstrated strength of a very different kind by conquering his demons. 
________________________________ 
 
'It's a great book, if I could read, I'd buy it' BILLY JOE SAUNDERS, WBO World Super-Middleweight Champion 
 
'I didn't believe boxers could be role models, but Tyson Fury has changed my mind... This 30-year-old Mancunian has made us all think twice about the possibilities of redemption.' 
SIMON KELNER, INDEPENDENT 
 
'Tyson Fury has become Britain's most unlikely inspirational figure... the sight of a broken Fury caught a mood with the public. Never was the epithet &quot;People's Champion&quot; more apt' 
RON LEWIS, THE TIMES 
 
'Tyson Fury is an amazing real-life champion' SYLVESTER STALLONE, star of Rocky 
 
'You may not have any interest in boxing at all and you will find this story about Tyson's life fascinating' BBC RADIO 5 LIVE 
 
'An unusual, heartening story, nicely told. There is much to amaze and admire' SUNDAY TIMES

Behind the Mask

Winner of the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year

Barry McGuigan

On a hot summer's night, in June 1985, in one of the most emotionally charged fights of all time, Barry McGuigan beat Eusebio Pedroza to become the featherweight champion of the world. An epic battle that lasted a full 15 rounds, it remains one of sport's greatest moments - watched by 27,000 spectators ringside and by a further 20 million on television around the world. 
 
Raised in the border town of Clones, Co. Monaghan, at the height of the troubles, Barry McGuigan united people across sectarian and religious divides during a difficult time in the country's political history. A Catholic, Barry married his Protestant childhood sweetheart, Sandra in 1981. An Irishman, he fought for the British title, wearing boxing shorts in the colours of the United Nation's Flag of Peace - and in place of a national anthem his musician father, Pat McGuigan would often sing a heartfelt rendition of 'Danny Boy' before a fight. 
 
Engaging and intelligent, McGuigan is a renowned and revered figure in the boxing world and beyond. In this candid autobiography, The Clones Cyclone shares his stories of extraordinary professional triumph and devastating personal tragedy.

Cyclone: My Story

Carl Froch

Carl Froch grew up on a tough Nottingham housing estate. His dad took him to the local boxing gym at just nine years old, hoping boxing would keep him out of trouble. Carl’s incredible natural ability soon became clear and he rapidly ascended the heights of professional boxing, becoming three-time Super Middleweight champion and Britain’s most exciting boxer. 
 
In 29 professional fights has suffered defeat only twice. His greatest fights have already gone down in boxing history. In 2009 he was knocked down for the first time in his career by Jermain Taylor. Behind on everyone's scorecard but his own, until, with just 14 seconds of the fight to go, he came back in spectacular fashion with a stunning knock out. In 2012 he emphatically beat Lucian Bute to reclaim his belt in front of record audiences. The press described the fight as ‘one of the best nights in British boxing’. 
 
The Cobra follows Britain's most respected boxer every step of the way as he prepares for, and fights, the most important bouts of his life. Honest, outspoken, and every inch the boy from Nottingham, Carl pulls no punches in his revealing story from inside the high-stakes world of boxing, from his first discovery of his talent to his ascent to World Champion. 
 
**Fully updated from the hardback; this edition includes two brand new chapters covering Carl's astonishing fifth-round destruction of previously unbeaten Lucian Bute, to reclaim his IBF world super middleweight title**

The Cobra

My Story

Billy Cribb

Bare-knuckle fighting without the bull! I haven't been to prison for robbery, I didn't know the Krays and I make no claims to be invincible . . . But my life fighting was the closest to hell I will ever get.'Learn what fuels hatred and makes a once-gentle boy into violent man. Read stories of horrific fighting experiences on the Mafia-controlled extreme fight circuit of New York. Prepare yourself for harrowing descriptions of drug addiction, mindless violence and organised crime. Tarmac Warrior has it all. Billy Cribb was born into a Romani/Jew family and spent most of his childhood travelling. His early years were marred by the racism and bigotry his family endured at the hands of small-minded locals in the villages where they worked. These random attacks planted seeds of anger and hatred in Billy which later manifested in his fighting - for Billy Cribb became one of the greatest bare-knuckle fighters of his generation. Revealing an underground fight scene rarely glimpsed by those on the outside, Tarmac Warrior traces Billy's career from his first fights on the motorways and A roads around Britain onto the cross channel ferries which provided an arena for many of his early fights. It then follows Billy's move to Majorca, giving a frightening insight into what really goes on in this seemingly idyllic Mediterranean island: the timeshare racketeering, extortion and organised crime which lie under the surface of the popular holiday destination.

Tarmac Warrior

The Violent World Of Extreme Fighting

25th February 1995 
The Dark Destroyer vs the G-Man 
Nigel Benn and Gerald McClennan 
 
Two men with a reputation to defend - a reputation for brutal, unforgiving combat both in the ring and outside it. Ostensibly, they were fighting for a world title and a lot of money, the stuff of professional boxing. But this fight was different. It was a rare collision of wills, and few present had seen anything like it. 
 
After ten of the most gruelling and vicious rounds that the sport of boxing has ever witnessed McClellan finally was defeated. He knelt in his corner on one knee in submission. And he never got up. 
 
This is the story of what brought these two men together on the night of 25th February 1995 and how that night changed them forever. It's a story too about those associated with the promotion of public fist-fighting, who bend morality to suit their needs. It's a story that attempts to unravel the glamour of violence. 
 
William Hill Sports Book of the Year Finalist.

War, Baby

The Glamour of Violence

Adam Smith

Boxing. The Sport of Kings. And for every king, there are kingmakers and princes, determined heirs and ruthless pretenders to the throne. Boxers may enter the ring alone, but behind them are their families, many of whom have spent a career in the fight game themselves. And all are caught up in this most beautiful but brutal of sports. 
 
Beautiful Brutality is the first book to examine the world of boxing from the perspective of family. With unprecedented access to the likes of the Calzaghes, Mayweathers, Hattons and Khans, Sky Sports boxing expert Adam Smith lays bare the raw emotion at the heart of the sport. How does it feel when your son is taking a pummelling? Can a father make rational judgements from the corner of the ring, in the frenzied atmosphere of a fight? And how much strength does a boxer take from his family, or the family figures that so many trainers and promoters become? 
 
Passionate, hard-hitting and with astonishing revelations about the world of boxing, Beautiful Brutality is written from the heart, by an author with a unique knowledge and experience of the fight game.

Beautiful Brutality: The Family Ties at the Heart of Boxing

W.K. Stratton

In 1956, at age 21, Floyd Patterson became the youngest boxer to win the title of world heavyweight champion and then, later, the first ever to lose and regain it. 
 
Here, acclaimed author W.K. Stratton chronicles the life of 'The Gentle Gladiator' - an athlete overshadowed by Ali's theatrics and Liston's fearsome reputation, and a civil-rights activist overlooked in the who's who of race politics. 
 
From the Gramercy Gym and wild-card manager Cus D'Amato to a final rematch against Ali in 1972, Patterson's career spanned boxing's Golden Age and included an Olympic gold medal. 
 
This powerful tribute to an invisible champion who fought his way to the top of a knockdown world, carrying many of the hopes and fears of the battle for civil rights, draws upon interviews with the fighter's friends and boxing contemporaries to provide the definitive account of his remarkable life and career.

Floyd Patterson

The Fighting Life of Boxing's Invisible Champion

Paddy Doherty

'I fight hard and love strong. I'm a traveller.' 
 
Paddy Doherty loves his life as an Irish traveller, but as a child he felt like an outsider. He was different to his siblings. On the rare occasions he went to school, he was bullied for being a gypsy boy. And beyond the gates of the camp he found nothing but hostility. 
 
Slowly, Paddy's hurt turned into anger and by the age of 11 he had started out on an illustrious career in bare-knuckle fighting. This earned him a position as one of the most well-respected (and feared) men in the travelling community. Yet while he won countless contests in the ring, the real battles he faced were very much outside. 
 
In this deeply honest autobiography, he tells of how he has loved and lost five children; plummeted to seven stone while battling depression, drink and drugs. He describes how it feels to be shot point-blank in the head and the lengths he'll go to to protect his people, as well as life since My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Big Brother. 
 
Told with all the warmth and humour he is famed for, Paddy's rich and colourful story is one that will stay with you for a long time to come.

Hard Knocks & Soft Spots

The No-Holds-Barred Sunday Times bestselling Autobiography 
 
'Tyson Fury is an amazing real-life champion' Sylvester Stallone 
____________________________________________________________________ 
 
Tyson pulls no punches in his most candid, comprehensive and entertaining book yet, which chronicles for the first time in full his inspirational story - the rise, the fall, and the rise again, which saw him come back from the brink of suicide to reclaim his heavyweight crown. 
 
Access-all-areas and full of never-before-told stories, Tyson looks back on his life and career to examine what's really defined him: his Travelling upbringing, his fighting family (including his dad John and his half-brother Tommy), his beloved wife Paris, his 6 beautiful children, his mental health battles, his faith, his boxing rivalries and the fights, pitfalls and challenges along the way. 
 
Tyson shares fascinating blow-by-blow accounts of his inspiring victories against Deontay Wilder and Dillian Whyte, his recovery from the depths of depression, and his journey to reclaiming his world heavyweight title. 
 
With revealing intimacy, Tyson also shares new sides to his character: in the weeks before the biggest fight of his career in 2021 the devoted father was sleeping on a hospital floor in intensive care tending to his new-born daughter Athena who was born premature and fighting for her life. 
 
'The book is brilliant...such an interesting read.' Chris Evans

Gloves Off

Tyson Fury Autobiography

Ramla Ali

Ramla Ali's life inside and outside the ring represents her ruthless refusal to quit and passion to fight for what she believes in. 
 
In her first book, Ramla details ten key fights - a combination of life's constant challenges and real bouts she's endured both in and outside of the ring - that have shaped her remarkable rise to date. 
 
From her arrival in England as a refugee to being drawn to the energy and spirit of her first boxercise class; from the adrenaline of her first amateur fights to how she often powered on alone, searching for a community of women like her, and her biggest win of all: letting love into her life. 
 
Each relatable lesson is packed full of honesty and urgency, powering the reader on to become their own champion.

Not Without a Fight: Ten Steps to Becoming Your Own Champion

I'm A Little Special: A Muhammad Ali Reader collects 30 of the best pieces ever written about this sporting legend in an anthology by the greatest about the Greatest. Muhammad Ali's story is told by a stellar array of authors, athletes and social commentators, all of them compelled to write about this amazing man. 
 
In addition to pieces by Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer, Floyd Patterson defends Ali's right to criticise America's participation in the Vietnam War; Malcolm X explains how he went from 'entertainer' to 'threat' with his declaration as a 'man of race'; Ali himself contributes with some poetry in his famous interview with Playboy magazine; and Gay Talese gives us a front seat on the 1996 ride to Cuba where Ali met Fidel Castro. 
 
Spanning four decades and including 16 pages of photographs, I'm A Little Special is the ultimate book about one of the true heroes of the twentieth century.

I'm A Little Special

A Muhammad Ali Reader

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

Kellie Harrington

Roddy Doyle

THE PHENOMENAL MEMOIR OF A NATIONAL TREASURE 
 
After Kellie Harrington won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, the Irish public recognized her as not merely a sporting hero, but a deeply inspirational human being. Now, Kellie tells the story of her unlikely journey to the top, and of the many obstacles and setbacks she overcame along the way. 
 
Growing up in Dublin's north inner city, Kellie was in danger of going down the wrong path in life before she discovered boxing. The local boxing club was all-male and initially wouldn't let her join, but she persisted. 
 
She was not an overnight success. For years she struggled in international competition. At times she felt unsupported by the national boxing set-up. More than once she considered giving up the sport. But some spark of ambition and love for boxing kept her going, and gradually she made herself world class. 
 
Writing with Roddy Doyle, the award-winning author of The Commitments, Kellie tells the story of her unlikely rise to greatness and her continuing dedication to living a normal life - which has involved remaining an amateur boxer and keeping the job she loves, at a Dublin psychiatric hospital. She shares exceptionally vivid and revealing details about being a woman in a historically male sport, and about how she manages her body and her mind. It is a vastly inspiring look inside the life and psychology of a woman who is both brilliantly ordinary and utterly exceptional.

Kellie

Steve Bunce

*FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE BIGGEST FIGHTS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS* 
 
'Essential reading for anyone with even a fleeting interest in boxing' Boxing Monthly 
 
 'Nobody knows British fighters and their stories better than Steve Bunce' Daily Telegraph 
 
Boxing is Steve Bunce's game. He has filed thousands and thousands of fight reports from ringside. He has written millions and millions of words for national newspapers previewing boxing, profiling boxers and proselytising on the business. He has been the voice of British boxing on the airwaves, both radio and television, with an army of loyal fans. And now it's time to put those many years of experience into penning his history of the sport of kings on these isles. It's Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing. 
 
Starting in 1970, the beginning of modern boxing in Britain, Bunce takes us from Joe Bugner beating Henry Cooper to an explosion then in the sport's exposure to the wider British public, with 22 million watching Barry McGuigan win his world title on the BBC. All boxing royalty is here - Frank Bruno taking on Mike Tyson in Las Vegas; Benn, Watson, Eubank and Naseem; Ricky Hatton, Lennox Lewis and Calzaghe; Froch and Haye - through to a modern day situation where with fighters as diverse as Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, we have more world champions than ever before. And besides the fighters, there are the fixers, the managers, the trainers, the duckers and divers... 
 
Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing will have every high and impossible low, tragic deaths and fairy tales. It is a record of British boxing, British boxing people and fifty years of glory, heartache and drama. 
 
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING 
 
***** A fantastic history and a top collectors prize already... this book knocked me out in the first pages. 
***** Must read book for boxing fans. 
***** Been reading boxing books all my life, don't think I've enjoyed one more than this. 
***** An absolute must for any British boxing fan.

Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing

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