The best Muhammad Ali books

One of the best sports books ever written? Judge for yourself, but I think it is certainly among the best. Even if you don’t like boxing or martial arts, you’ll enjoy this eminently readable book about “the rumble in the jungle” in Zaire between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, two heroic athletes in conflict. Although there are moments of self-deprecating humor and Mailer’s usual philosophical concerns, Mailer focuses squarely on the two athletes, their training camps and trainers, the people around them, and the experience of being in Africa. And then of course there is the fight itself, described in vivid and inventive detail that I found is as riveting to other readers as it is to me. The philosophical/metaphysical concerns here are part and parcel of those Mailer developed through his sixty years as a writer, but they are introduced in an easily digestible style and seem to me… show more.

In this dual biography about the nexus of Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell’s cultural significance and friendship, the backdrop of their seemingly omnipresent place on the American and global media landscape in the 1960s and ‘70s is explored with great detail in the paths they forged, individually and collectively. Kindred does his homework in finding rich anecdotes from the boxer and broadcaster’s upbringings in Louisville and New York City, respectively. What’s more, there are recurring details about their interactions before, during, and after many of Ali’s biggest fights. It’s a fascinating character study of larger-than-life personalities with massive egos, as well as Cosell’s support of Ali’s right to oppose the Vietnam War. The alternating focus on Ali and Cosell gives Kindred a flexible format to deliver a literary knockout.

It is a rare gift to have the ability to tell the life stories of two iconic figures in the same… show more.

Taking stock of my selections, I realise that they are all to some degree autobiographical or semi-autobiographical. Just why I am attracted to this genre I don’t know: perhaps I am fascinated by the technical challenge of finding a narrative voice that is both personal and detached, of impersonalising emotions that could easily just be self-indulgent. Humour is often useful here, and Vladislavics’s novel is richly humorous, in its (lightly fictionalised) account of a culturally challenging boyhood in Pretoria, at the time the whitest and most conservative city in South Africa (interestingly, also the setting for Galgut’s The Promise). Young Joe, the stand-in for the author has, apart from an addiction to reading, a consuming interest in Muhammed Ali, and has kept a scrapbook of every newspaper item he could find relating to the great boxer. The bookworm-boxing addict is entirely engaging, as brought to life by a master… show more.

Published in 1979, Anderson’s collection of columns preserves seminal sports moments, primarily from that decade. Anderson’s on-deadline work for The New York Times revisits Hank Aaron’s 715th MLB home run, which broke Babe Ruth’s all-time record. He was in the right place at the right time for an interview with Negro Leagues pitching legend Satchel Paige in 1976, a column in which the old fireballer praised Slim Jones, Bob Feller, and Dizzy Dean as the “best pitches I ever saw.” Jimmy Connors, Joe Namath, Gordie Howe, Julius Erving, and Muhammad Ali are among the icons that Anderson highlights with exceptional portraiture, capturing Howe’s career as he approaches his 50th birthday. Anderson also produces a splendid profile of Wilt Chamberlain playing volleyball.

Like many of the premier sports journalists of the post-World War II era, Anderson traveled widely and covered prominent events throughout the United States and around the… show more.

Talk about a woman taking on a challenge to prove she can do it! Tori Murden McClure sails across the Atlantic Ocean in a 23-foot wooden rowboat. This is an immersive read, in which I felt what she felt as she powers the boat by human strength. Despite no real human interaction once she is on the water, McClure brings her experiences to life (she has to start over after going 3,000 miles) by narrating the journey in such detail that I was there with her. I personally find the open ocean terrifying and was grateful to have the “experience” without having to actually experience it.