Combat Memoirs

Beetle-browed, nearly bald, with a head that rode his collarbones like a bowling ball returning on rails, his waist size more than half his five-foot, eight-inch height, Two Ton Tony Galento resembled, according to Collier's magazine writer Jack Miley, ''a taxi driving away with its top down.'' By all measures he stood no chance when he stepped into the ring against the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, the finest heavyweight of his generation.

Bullied at school, Simon Gray set off on a journey to avenge his demons. From the Muay Thai ring to the traditional Japanese dojo, his journey of self-discovery is packed full of humor, inspiration, and lessons to live a better and more fulfilling life. Approaching his mid-thirties, he stepped away from the corporate rat race.

Like the legendary Hellenic hero Prometheus, George Dillman is both admired and criticized for sharing once arcane knowledge with the wider world. His pioneering work in the field of pressure point fighting has had made a profound and lasting impression on the landscape of the martial arts. By any standard, Dillman is a martial giant. Here, then, for the first time anywhere, is his story, told in the words of the man himself, and those of his students, and voiced by one of his senior instructors...

He went in as a military history buff, a virgin, and a teetotaler. He came out with a war bride, a taste for German beer, and intimate knowledge of one of the darkest parts of history. His name is Dean Joy, and this was his war. For two months in 1945, Joy endured and survived the everyday deprivations and dangers of being a frontline infantryman. His amazingly detailed memoir, self-illustrated with numerous scenes Joy remembers from his time in Europe, brings back the sights, sounds, and smells of the experience as few books ever have.

In Slaughter in the Streets, Don Stradley masterfully unfolds the story of how Boston became "boxing's murder capital." From the early days of Boston's Mafia, to the era of Whitey Bulger, Stradley tells the fascinating stories of men who were drawn to the dual shady worlds of boxing and the mob.

Sa vie exemplaire, son amour des siens, sa fidélité sans faille aux valeurs de la République, son attachement à la cause des femmes ont fait de Simone Veil un modèle de ce que doit être une personnalité politique de premier rang. A mesurer l’immensité des épreuves qu’elle a connues et surmontées, on comprend pourquoi tant de respect, d’admiration et d’affection entourent Simone Veil, la “mère courage” de notre génération. Robert Badinter....

Tina's struggle continues in The Terrorist Maker. Surrounded by murderers her only chance to survive is to start using her gift. His gaze is stony, his eyelids at half-mast. And I can’t look at him at all, which is why I’m lying with my eyes closed. I’m afraid to see something frightening in these eyes. But I feel that I need to look. Otherwise, this ‘frightening thing’ inside him will suffocate me. I realize, that if I don’t do this, I’ll be left to die exactly like that man, about whom they later simply forgot. Therefore, however frightening and difficult it might be, I’m ...

William "Haystacks" Calhoun is an instantly recognizable name to any wrestling fan. A legend in his own time, Haystacks popularized the country-bumpkin wrestler shtick and used his personality to win big both at the box-office and in the hearts of fans. Behind the overalls though, was a man who as a child had an enormous appetite and few prospects until he discovered the sport that would change his life - professional wrestling.

Amidst the tension of a true historical military escalation between the USA and Libya in 1986, a Navy fighter pilot navigates his haunted past and uncertain future, discovering that true battles lie within, while a determined detective in Denver unravels a web of deceit, murder, and stolen diamonds that threatens to destroy them both.

Written in 1976, this is the story of Larry Gains, the Coloured Heavyweight Champion of the World. It tells of his life in the rings of the world...riding the night trains of Canada...working the cattle boats...gambling in the casinos of the Riviera...Paris in the '20s, Cologne and the Charleston, Leicester and the long Indian Summer. It reveals the secrets of the champions...the twilight world of the Boston Tar Baby...the amorous ways of Harry Greb...how Battling Siki saw the light...the feuding with Jeff Dickson...and the chasing of Jack Sharkey.

Frank Warren has spent 40 years working with boxing's most colourful and controversial characters. In his long-awaited autobiography, he reflects on the battles he had to win to reach the top and remain there, not least the battle to stay alive after he was shot at point-blank range in an attempted assassination in 1989. In Frank and Fearless, Warren pulls no punches, taking us behind the scenes into a world of blood and sweat, and intense relationships that all too often end in tears.

Boxeadores que hace décadas llevaron la emoción de los cuadriláteros a generaciones de latinoamericanos. La lucha que libra la etnia wayúu contra los civilizados, cuyas intrusiones minan la cultura y las costumbres de la etnia. Un equipo de futbol conformado por travestis, dedicado a recaudar fondos para ayudar a homosexuales con problemas de adicción. La curiosa historia de un hombre que fue boxeador y paramilitar, que asegura poseer superpoderes y ser un protegido de los espíritus.

In Muhammad Ali, Michael Ezra considers the boxer who calls himself “The Greatest” from a new perspective. Ezra’s incisive study examines the relationships between Ali’s cultural appeal and its commercial manifestations. Citing examples of the boxer’s relationship to the Vietnam War and the Nation of Islam - which serve as barometers of his “public moral authority” - Muhammad Ali analyzes the difficulties of creating and maintaining these cultural images, as well as the impact these themes have on Ali’s meaning to the public.

By the age of 24, Big Joe Egan had over 80 boxing wins and seven Irish titles and was a Golden Gloves champion. A mean body puncher with a durable chin, he went the distance with Lennox Lewis and beat future WBA champion Bruce Seldon. Encouraged by Floyd Patterson to try his luck in the USA, Joe joined "Iron" Mike Tyson’s training camp in the Catskill Mountains with the great Cus D’Amato. Joe became like a brother to Mike, who described him as the Toughest White Man on the Planet. Big Joe Egan is a gripping, entertaining, and uncompromisingly emotional account.

The book chronicles the extraordinary life and leadership of Rome's Emperor Julius Caesar, from his early years to his assassination. "History of Julius Caesar" is one of many biographies aimed at young people written by Jacob Abbott and his brother. The biographies are written in such a way that makes them appealing and easily accessible to everyone.

Everyone who knew professional boxer Zora Folley called him a gentleman. This true-crime story cracks the cold case of Folley's untimely death in the swimming pool of a sketchy motel. On a hot July night in 1972, when he should have been home with his faithful wife, Zora Folley instead was partying with his mistress and a shady celebrity hanger-on at a motel in Tucson, Arizona. He died that night, his head crushed, the only witnesses claiming it was an accident that occurred when the agile ex-boxer slipped and hit his head on a concrete divider in the pool.

Picture a man, he’s tall, not excessively so, yet as wide as he is high. This man is a spitting and growling street brawler; a tank full of ready-to-blow, muscle-fuelled aggression. Imagine, if you will, the comic-book style Bulldog of Great British stamp. Well, there you have him! The prototypical face taken from the terraces of an ’80s football fan’s rolled-up newspaper cosh; a poster-boy of malevolence left over from Thatcher’s post-punk Britain.

Lost in the annals of boxing is the sport's true Cinderella story. James J. Braddock, dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon, was a once promising light heavyweight for whom a string of losses in the ring and a broken right hand happened to coincide with the Great Crash of 1929.

Being a champion is a choice. Bullies, self-doubt, failure, abuse, humiliation and setbacks plagued his life. Through a desire to keep pushing forward and the resilience of never quitting, MMA pioneer and Jiu Jitsu World Champion Chad George found a way to transform his self-destructive thinking to believing he can accomplish anything. In "A Champion's Mindset" he shares his journey of building the fighter within and how we all have to FIGHT for what we want in life.

Battle fatigue...shell shock...PTSD... terminology changes. The pain remains. Paul Eastman, a small-town Wisconsin boy turned P-40 fighter pilot, lands in the jungles of Assam and Burma in 1943. Lt. Eastman's compelling story, gleaned from his diary and letters home and illustrated with his personal photos, provides unique insights into the realities of combat life and death, punctuated by love and concern for the wife he left behind.