Shadow Box
An Amateur in the Ring

A now funny, now poignant, now breathtaking book, less about boxing in itself than about boxing as a lens through which to view the world. Here's the book in Plimpton's own words: "What do you want to know such things for?" [he asked.] "I thought you were writing a book about boxing." "I am," I replie......more

From “A Poem on the Annihilation of Ernie Terrell” by Muhammad Ali and Marianne Moore " . . . He is claiming to be the real heavyweight champ But when the fight starts he will look like a tramp He has been talking too much about me and making me sore After I am through with him he will not be able to ch......more

A great author on any subject (in the mould of George Orwell), George Plimpton, editor of the Paris Review, takes us into the world of professional boxing. His first foray is an exercise in "participatory journalism", in which he organizes a fight between himself and Archie Moore, then Light Heavywe......more

Read this on top of Norman Mailer's The Fight. I had not realized that this book was also, for the most part, an account of Ali-Foreman "The Rumble In The Jungle" in Kinshasa, Zaire. Mano a mano, you'd think Mailer would win by a knockout (ouch!), but Norman's book, as with a lot of his non-fiction,......more