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 outrageous promoters, and, inevitably along the way, have written incisively about race, class, and spectacle in America. Like baseball, boxing has a vivid culture and language all its own, one that has proven irresistible to career sportswriters and literary essayists alike.This gritty and glittering anthology gathers a century of the very best writing about the fights. Here are Jack London on the immortal Jack Johnson; H. L. Mencken and Irvin S. Cobb on Jack Dempsey vs. Georges Carpentier, the first “Fight of the Century” that captivated the world in the 1920s; Richard Wright on Joe Louis’s historic first-round knockout of Max Schmeling; A. J. Liebling’s brilliantly comic portrait of a manager who really identifies with his fighter; Jimmy Cannon on Archie Moore, the greatest fighter of the 1950s; James Baldwin and Gay Talese on Floyd Patterson’s epic tilt with Sonny Liston; George Plimpton on Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X; Norman Mailer on the Rumble in the Jungle; Mark Kram on the Thrilla in Manila; Pete Hamill on legendary trainer and manager Cus D’Amato; Mark Kriegel on Oscar De la Hoya; and David Remnick and Joyce Carol Oates on Mike Tyson. National Book Award–winning novelist Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin) offers a foreword.

    With unprecedented access to club officials, players and coaches, author Konrad Marshall takes the reader inside the rooms at the key moments the campaign, chronicling the Tigers' journey towards premiership contention. This is not just a book of wins and losses, it's the story of a professional football club and how it operates at every level: from the fitness staff, to the coaching panel, the players, and the Board. Football has changed enormously since Richmond's last flag, in 1980, and Marshall explains in great detail the enormous amount of work and thought that goes into every decision made-on and off the field. Whether the Tigers make it to the last Saturday in September or not, their story is rich and explosive. A Season with Richmond is full of unparalleled access to all the key moments, including frank and occasionally emotional interviews with all the key figures. A Season with Richmond is a compulsory read for all football fans.

    He’s the most loveable of rogues with the most common of dreams: to become a professional footballer. And he isn’t about to let trivial details like talent and achievement stand in his way. . . not when he has so many other ways to get what he wants.In one of the most remarkable football stories ever told, Kaiser graduates from abandoned slumdog to star striker, dressing-room fixer, superstar party host and inexhaustible lover. And all without kicking a ball. He’s not just the king… he’s the Kaiser.

    At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan’s most infamous yakuza boss—and the threat of death for him and his family—Adelstein decided to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought back.In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter—who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor—to a daring, investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a fascination, and an education, from first to last.

    As a result of this, Salman Rashid’s family fled Jalandhar for Pakistan, the newly created country across the border.They were among the nearly two million people uprooted from their homes in the greatest transmigration in history. Besides those who fled, other members of the family became part of a grimmer statistic: they featured among the more than one million unfortunate souls who paid with their lives for the division of India and creation of Pakistan.After living in the shadow of his family’s tragedy for decades, in 2008, Rashid made the journey back to his ancestral village to uncover the truth. A Time of Madness tells the story of what he discovered with great poignancy and grace. It is a tale of unspeakable brutality but it is also a testament to the uniquely human traits of forgiveness, redemption and the resilience of the human spirit.

    The capital of Pakistan is a sprawling mega-city of 20 million people. It is a place of political turbulence in which those who have power wield it with brutal and partisan force, a place in which it pays to have friends in the right places and to avoid making deadly enemies. It is a society where lavish wealth and absolute poverty live side by side, and where the lines between idealism and corruption can quickly blur. It takes an insider to know where is safe, who to trust, and what makes Karachi tick, and in this powerful debut, Samira Shackle explores the city of her mother's birth in the company of a handful of Karachiites. Among them is Safdar the ambulance driver, who knows the city's streets and shortcuts intimately and will stop at nothing to help his fellow citizens. There is Parveen, the activist whose outspoken views on injustice corruption repeatedly lead her towards danger. And there is Zille, the hardened journalist whose commitment to getting the best scoops puts him at increasing risk. As their individual experiences unfold, so Shackle tells the bigger story of Karachi over the past decade: a period in which the Taliban arrive in Pakistan, adding to the daily perils for its residents and pushing their city into the international spotlight. Writing with intimate local knowledge and a global perspective, Shackle paints a nuanced and vivid portrait of one of the most complex, most compelling cities in the world.

    Z came to expect a certain alchemical, trademark blend: words which were caustic and wry, at times self-deprecating or even puzzling, but always devilishly smart with arresting honesty. A complex package, that's the Doctor.  The one-time sparring partner of Ernest Hemingway, Paul Zimmerman is one of the modern era's groundbreaking football minds, a man who methodically charted every play while generating copious notes, a human precursor to the data analytics websites of today. In 2008, Zimmerman had nearly completed work on his personal memoirs when a series of strokes left him largely unable to speak, read, or write. Compiled and edited by longtime SI colleague Peter King, these are the stories he still wants to see told.  Dr. Z’s memoir is a rich package of personalities, stories never shared about such characters as Vince Lombardi, Walter Payton, Lawrence Taylor, and Johnny Unitas. Even Joe Namath, with whom Zimmerman had a legendary and well-documented 23-year feud, saw fit to eventually unburden himself to the remarkable scribe.  Also included are Zimmerman's encounters with luminaries and larger-than-life figures outside of sports, notably Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, and Hunter S. Thompson. But not to be missed are Zimmerman's quieter observations on his own life and writing, witticisms and anecdotes which sway between the poignant and hilarious. No matter the topic, Dr. Z: the Lost Memoirs of an Irreverent Football Writer proves essential, compelling reading for sports fans old and new.

    So, after a meeting under a lamp post about 100 yards from where White Hart Lane stands today, they formed Hotspur Football Club. Players paid sixpence to join up, and the club played its first match in a dark blue strip with a red 'H' badge. Now Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is one of the greatest names in the greatest games of all, with an illustrious history of footballing firsts including having become the first non-league team to win the FA Cup, the first team of the modern era to win the league and cup Double and the first British team to win a European trophy. Beyond that, the club has a proud tradition of ambition, excellence and of playing football the right way, 'the Spurs Way'. It is an unspoken but implicit prerequisite that the teams who pull on the famous lilywhite shirts will always endeavour to entertain and exhilarate the club's fans with fast, quick-passing, attacking football. "The game," as the great Spurs captain Danny Blanchflower so succinctly put it, "is about glory". In The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur, renowned author Julie Welch who has lilywhite and blue blood coursing through her veins brilliantly deconstructs the history of the club to get to the very heart and soul of Tottenham Hotspur. How did Spurs develop their unique and precious character? Who were the key individuals and what were the key events that shaped the modern Spurs?Packed with wonderful stories from the formation of the club to the present day, and the memories of numerous legendary players, managers, supporters and other key figures, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur brings the rich and glorious history of Spurs to life from a new and fascinating perspective.

    Interracial contests took place during the off-season, when major leaguers and Negro Leaguers alike fattened their wallets by playing exhibitions in cities and towns across America. These barnstorming tours reached new heights, however, when Satchel Paige and other African- American stars took on white teams headlined by the irrepressible Dizzy Dean. Lippy and funny, a born showman, the native Arkansan saw no reason why he shouldn't pitch against Negro Leaguers. Paige, who feared no one and chased a buck harder than any player alive, instantly recognized the box-office appeal of competing against Dizzy Dean's "All-Stars." Paige and Dean both featured soaring leg kicks and loved to mimic each other's style to amuse fans. Skin color aside, the dirt-poor Southern pitchers had much in common. Historian Timothy M. Gay has unearthed long-forgotten exhibitions where Paige and Dean dueled, and he tells the story of their pioneering escapades in this engaging book. Long before they ever heard of Robinson or Larry Doby, baseball fans from Brooklyn to Enid, Oklahoma, watched black and white players battle on the same diamond. With such Hall of Fame teammates as Josh Gibson, Turkey Stearnes, Mule Suttles, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, and Bullet Joe Rogan, Paige often had the upper hand against Diz. After arm troubles sidelined Dean, a new pitching phenom, Bob Feller--Rapid Robert--assembled his own teams to face Paige and other blackballers. By the time Paige became Feller's teammate on the Cleveland Indians in 1948, a rookie at age forty-two, Satch and Feller had barnstormed against each other for more than a decade.These often obscure contests helped hasten the end of Jim Crow baseball, paving the way for the game's integration. Satchel Paige, Dizzy Dean, and Bob Feller never set out to make social history--but that's precisely what happened. Tim Gay has brought this era to vivid and colorful life in a book that every baseball fan will embrace.

    8-page photo insert. 2 maps.

    In all that time she ran the team motorhome for a succession of different teams, including Lotus in the Senna era and Benetton in the Schumacher era. Her memoir looks at Formula 1 from an unusual viewpoint. As well as Formula 1 people, she has encountered personalities from every walk of life, from royalty to criminals on the run. Her stories range from the hilarious to the tragic and provide a unique insight. This is a fast-paced read packed with surprising snippets and observations, with plenty of intimate insight into what the drivers are really like.

    He is the fastest bowler in the world, who set an official world record by achieving the fastest delivery when he clocked in at 161.3 km/ph (100.2 mph) twice in the same match. Having taken more than 400 wickets in international cricket, he is a phenomenal cricketer too.Tagged as being undisciplined, Akhtar’s career has been plagued by injuries, controversies and accusations of poor attitude. Here he tells his side of the story. The early years of deprivation, the relentless self-imposed discipline, the way he played both on the cricket grounds and outside. His is also the inside story of Pakistan cricket, no holds barred: the strange ways of the cricket board, the hierarchies and manipulations and, above all, the magic of the game itself.

    Sunday lunchtime kick-offs. Absurd ticket prices. Non-black boots. Football's menu of ills is long. Where has the joy gone? Why do we bother? Saturday, 3pm offers a glorious antidote. It is here to remind you that football can still sing to your heart.Warm, heartfelt and witty, here are fifty short essays of prose poetry dedicated to what is good in the game. These are not wallowing nostalgia; they are things that remain sweet and right: seeing a ground from the train, brackets on vidiprinters, ball hitting bar, Jimmy Armfield's voice, listening to the results in a traffic jam, football towns and autograph-hunters. This is fan culture at its finest, words to transport you somewhere else and identify with, words to hide away in a pub and luxuriate in.Saturday, 3pm is a book of love letters to football and a clarion call, helping us find the romance in the game all over again.

    It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.