The Sweet Science
ISBN10: 0374272271
ISBN13: 9780374272272
Trade Paperback
288 Pages
$19.00
CA$25.00
A. J. Liebling's classic New Yorker pieces on the "sweet science of bruising" bring vividly to life the boxing world as it once was. The Sweet Science depicts the great events of boxing's American heyday: Sugar Ray Robinson's dramatic comeback, Rocky Marciano's rise to prominence, Joe Louis's tragic decline. Liebling never fails to find the human story behind the fight, and he always evokes the atmosphere in the arena as distinctly as he does the goings-on in the ring—a combination that prompted Sports Illustrated to name The Sweet Science the best American sports book of all time.
As the noted boxing writer Robert Anasi remarks in his foreword to this book, "Liebling doesn't make the ring over into the setting for a morality play or an alternate site for Armageddon. His own boxing experience allowed him to represent the sport as sport, and to see boxing the way the pros do: as a job, more difficult than most, but also more rewarding."
Reviews
Praise for The Sweet Science
"In The Sweet Science—in all his books—Liebling himself, the voice and the character, is immensely appealing."—David Remnick, The New Yorker
"Nobody wrote about boxing with more grace and enthusiasm than Joe Liebling."—Red Smith, The New York Times
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
The Sweet Science
The Big Fellows
Boxing with the Naked Eye
Watching a fight on television has always seemed to me a poor substitute for being there. For one thing, you can't tell the fighters what to do....