Book Description
Shadow Boxing is a book that can change the foundational fabric of your lives causing you to trace your attitudes actions and reactions to their root causes and to remove negative destructive patterns. Henry Malone identifies open doors that give Satan access into your life and leads you thorough a systematic strategy to close those doors. The focus of this book is upon leading people to experience the truth they say they believe.
Customer Reviews:
The Dynamic Book.......2007-02-21
This book is Dynamic this book help me help people come out of dark,dark
places, whan theres seem like theres no hope this God sent book tell so much about darkness you can see yourself comeing out of darkness in to the lightness of God I have told so many about this book. I gave review to my class on this book, I recommend it to ever one thats in a dark place
and ever one who knows the Lord. I love it because its for everybody, Its
a Blessing its a God sent. Joylena Arvie Williams
This book will set you free!.......2007-01-14
If you are born again but still unaware of the spiritual realm this book will open your eyes and set you on the path to freedom. I highly recommend it.
Awesome spiritually and Godly.......2006-10-17
This book is something everyone should read. It highlights many things all of us have been going through and how to cleanse our spirits and how to break those things in our life that we will not permit because they are not Godly they are of Satan! It teaches us how to reclaim what Jesus has already paid the price in full for each and every one of us and why we should not allow Satan to control any of our thoughts or our ancestrual things that are put upon us. Please read this book if you have things in your life that seem to keep coming back at you! Stop Satan in his tracks and find out the why's and How's of these things in your life or loved ones life! Praise God for Dr. Malones insight on this book! And praise God for anyone directed in reading it. It will change your life just as it has mine!
A troubling mix of ancient widsom, modern truths, strange myths and primitive, racist biases.......2005-08-24
"You may know the truth but still live out a lie in your daily experience, because knowing something in your mind doesn't necessarily enable you to live it. 'Knowing the truth' is not [a] mental assent to some theological doctrine but rather intimacy with the truth--Jesus Christ. Truth becomes 'at home' in you...therefore if you know the Truth of God, you will be free from lies binding you...Satan is an expert at lies, deceptions and fears, knowing the Truth will allow you to walk victoriously."
Dr. Henry Malone
SHADOW BOXING
Chapter 7: "Holding" and
Chapter 8: "The Fourteen Root Spirits"
"It is ironic yet inescapable that the greatest Christian of modern times never embraced Christianity."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
on the Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi
The simple beauty and timeless wisdom in this fascinating and potent book SHADOW BOXING are as clear, obvious and spiritually nutritious as the convoluted collection of racist mythology, bipolar anti-Semitism and unapologetic witchcraft which accompanies it is spiritually harmful.
His listing of the "Fourteen Root Spirits" that bind a soul otherwise full of joy in the bosom of God to the devil begins with the "Spirit of Infirmity". In it he includes diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, sinus problems and the (somewhat misogynistic) generalization "female problems." Most of these, however, have been linked to the following for decades now: 1) the booming sugar, fast food and tobacco industries and their disease-inducing products, 2) the public relations companies spawned for the express purpose of misinforming the public about the harm those products cause the body, and 3) the congressional lobbyists who see to it that no politician can get elected by pushing laws regulating their distribution for the health and welfare of the country. Yet he never once mentions the spirits of "Lying" and "Whoredoms" ("love of money"; "seduction"; "lust for position"; "placing anyone or anything [like Mammon] before God") serving as the foundation for not just much of our military empire economy, but for all of these multi-billion dollar corporations and the misery they have produced for millions of Christians around the world. Through silence, he becomes complicit with corporate sin.
Dr. Malone speaks of exorcising demons and spirits repeatedly (in, ironcially, the same way African "witch doctors" do it). Interestingly, however, while painting a 19th century missionary's picture of the Godless jungle people of Africa to make unrelated points about curses and spirits, he conveniently never mentions Apartheid; Nelson Mandela; the University of Ghana in Legon; the culturally sophisticated quasi-westernized upper Middle Class (and oil fields) of Nigeria; or the millions of African Christians--including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Bishop Tutu--who would have serious issues with his entire Christian perspective. He supports through myth and silence a willfully ignorant, simplistic and immoral view of Africa and all of its people that is definitively unGodly.
The word "racism" appears just once in the entire book, unexplained. He does not even repeat it for the index.
The entire histories of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, (by default) the Enlightenment (which, via the non-Christian Founding Fathers of our nation, produced our Constitution) and all of the scientific and social innovation derived from them all--which we modern Christians both depend on and take for granted--is also flushed down the toilet as demonic for Malone with one phrase: "Eastern religions" ("Spirit of Divination", pg. 126). So embracing the heart of Gandhi (Satyagraha), for example, for how it reflects the heart of Christ (The Golden Rule) is out of the question for him.
Regarding Judaism: Malone essentially says it is right to hate the Jewish people and their religion in your heart, but wrong to express it openly in words (even though the Christ, who quoted an OT psalm while on the cross, never forsook his Jewish origins); for they are (still) the chosen people of God (compare chapter 6 to 8). And while never bothering to make any distinctions between ancient and modern Jews; Aryan/Ashkenazic, Arab and African/Falasha Jews; Israeli and European/American Jews; or the Israeli people and the Israeli military, he never bothers to explain the moral contradictions of his beliefs when they occur--sometimes in the same chapter.
The amount of critical thinking necessary to uncover problems like these throughout this book is minimal. Malone, however, makes "intellectualism" and "false teaching," despite his pursuing and earning what we are led to believe is a Doctorate in Theology, more sins against God (#14: the "Spirit of Error"). Much like the corrupt Popes and Bishops who harassed the father of Protestantism Martin Luther (not to mention Galileo), Malone, it seems, plays the demon card as a pre-emptive strike whenever it suits him politically. I guess he does this in the event anyone would dare "doubt" (see #14 again), question (#14 yet again: "confusion"; "unbelief") or disagree with any aspect of his way of thinking (see #12: spirit of jealousy; "distrustfulness"; "unnatural competition"). In so doing though, he himself "blasphemes the gifts" of genius that are "of the Holy Spirit" when they, like Jesus did, come to us in untraditional, unexpected and uncontrollable ways; "attributing them to Satan." (#8: "Spirit of Antichrist.").
On pages 140 and 141 of chapter 9, Dr. Malone speaks of a woman raised in a family of Satanists. He describes how "satanic plants" would "teach children in the church in such a way that they would believe in a form of Jesus, but never in the true Jesus of the Bible...Therefore they would grow up thinking they were saved, but they were only members of a church, having never been born again." Whether or not Dr. Henry Malone meant to tarnish the wisdom in this book by putting it in a satanic context is irrelevant; that is exactly what SHADOW BOXING does. I learned so much from some of the individual points of this book (hence the three stars), but all true Christians above a seventh grade education must develop the moral courage to reconsider the actual source of his teachings.
great, practical, easy to understand.......2004-11-12
this has helped so much.
it is easy to understand.
easy to read and very easy to put it into practice.
helped me realize how we already have victory over evil, through Jesus Christ.
the victory is already ours.
Book Description
Boxing gyms are uncovered in all of their glorious grunge in these photographs and essays that reveal both the stark reality of success and the possibility of promise in the sport of boxing. This intimate look at the fighters, trainers, and hangers-on who inhabit these gyms brings to life the tough—and surprisingly tender—world of American boxing. Evocative images reveal the pain, sacrifice, and discipline of the "sweet science" as well as the triumphs, tragedies, and big dreams of the men and women who practice it. A dozen essays by veteran boxing writers such as Katherine Dunn, Carlo Rotella, Kate Sekules, F. X. Toole, Lucius Shepard, Robert Anasi, Loic Wacquant, Joe Rein, and Ralph Wiley explore the community and culture of boxing gyms, an endangered American institution that serves not only as the training ground for the next generation of great fighters, but as a sanctuary in tough neighborhoods, a lifeline for troubled kids, and a repository of a centuries-old tradition of pugilistic knowledge.
Customer Reviews:
Good Choice for Boxing Fans.......2006-08-04
This book is filled with inspiring photographs as well as many interesting, educational, and thoughtful texts to go along. I love to watch boxing and admire the heart of the sport. This book encaptures that vulnerable side of the sweet science. I highly reccommend this to all boxing fans.
Balanced writing, brilliant photographs--unignorable!.......2005-06-06
Shadow Boxers is a miracle of a Father's Day gift. Not without a fight, however, will pop hold onto the book--not while his wife and children are around to read it and, of course, look at it.
The universal appeal of Shadow Boxers owes much to its balanced tone, primal subject, and powerful contributors. Here are writers contending in their own prize rings--Esquire, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Time Magazine, Harper's--for trophies as big as the National Book Award and The Best American Sports Writing. Katherine Dunn, especially, packs a mean punch; again and again she finds your solar plexus before you've finished her first paragraph. (A sample: "One day many years ago, I rode my press credential into a busy boxing gym and was shocked to see a hard-punching monster known as Frankie `The Preacher Man' doing push-ups in the ring with his year-old son sprawled on his back. Amid the din of ringing bells, drumming speed bags, and smacking leather, the baby slept, his long lashes fanned across the chubby cheeks, rocking in the smooth rise and fall of his father's powerful shoulders.")
The photographs alone are worth the cost of admission. Jim Lommasson approaches his subject with the hard-hitting nostalgia of Annie Leibovitz, alongside whose photos of bluesmen, rockers, and gospel singers these fighter shots necessarily belong. Indeed, Pottery Barn has yet to make the coffee table worthy of holding Lommasson and Liebovitz's rock-solid studies of two deep-dyed national passions: Shadow Boxers and American Music (Random House, 2003).
Shadow Boxers opens with a foreword by heavyweight champ Joe Frazier (sole inspiration of the beef-punching scene in Rocky) and features a brief but vivid history of boxing gyms.
The ensuing essays abound with keenly observed ironies about the noble science (e.g., "The game is brutal, but its core is strangely gentle"; "It's dawned on me over the years that there is less macho posturing in boxing gyms than in the average corporate boardroom"), and with crisp details (e.g., the memorable description of Larry Holmes' "jump jab," and the sketch of a city gym in Portland, Oregon, where "a speed bag hung several feet above a wooden pallet, which was used to help children reach the leather punching bag"). So, too, do the essays abound with sharp personal accounts (e.g., a Golden Glove champ who "never weighed more than 140 pounds" and who first entered the gym owing to his girlfriend's parting shot: "you're not man enough"), and with touching accounts of young hoods meeting the coaches who might not only change their lives but save them.
To read Shadow Boxers is to feel the strange warmth, the beckoning glow of boxing gyms, those shabby sanctuaries where individuals can still find a devoted mentor, a group of brothers and sisters, a path toward redemption.
A unique insight into the world of professional gyms.......2005-06-06
Enhanced with a foreword by the renowned world heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice & The Will To Survive is compiled and edited by photographer Jim Lommasson, who has been documenting boxing gyms from more than a decade. Informed and informative essays are contributed by boxing enthusiasts Katherine Dunn, Carlo Rotella, Kate Sekules, Lucius Shepard, Robert Anasi, Ralph Wiley, F. X. Toole, Loic Wacquant, Joe Rein, Rene Denfeld, Larry Seurynck, Timothy Taylor, and Mark Kram, Jr. With the inclusion of 110 duotone and 65 color photographs, this 176-page, strongly recommended compendium provides a unique pictorial insight into the world of professional gyms and what those men and women who aspire to excel in their chosen sport/profession and is of especial interest to dedicated fans of boxing, as well as students of American popular sports culture.
Book Description
Designed to introduce students to the academic discipline of Communication, this text describes the scope and methods of communication studies, and sketches its history from the work of the early sophists to contemporary research efforts. Boxing Plato’s Shadow helps explain why, despite its long and venerable history of scholarly endeavor, Communication continues to struggle for recognition of its legitimate place in the academy. Throughout, the authors emphasize the field's durability over more than two millennia and the merits of multiple systematic approaches to the study of communication.
Customer Reviews:
Rhetoric "On the Ropes"?.......2006-08-08
Dues and Brown are "spot on" in this survey of the history and importance of rhetorical theory, conceptually. However, in a book that is only eighty-seven pages long, such a "survey" can be "a motorcycle ride though an art gallery", in practice. The treatments of the subjects that are addressed in this "little book" came close to being so "Harley-ed", at times.
That being said, I believe that there is much to recommend this book, especially for readers who are looking for a book that will give a good "thumbnail sketch" of important issues in and for the study of rhetoric. For example, I was particularly impressed by the authors' constructive analysis and application of the "Neo-Aristotelian" school of rhetorical analysis, a treatment that has not been common in the field of rhetoric since 1965, when a "double whammy" by Black's book and the outbreak of a "Young Turk/Old Buffalo" academic blood feud led to the great diminishment and disparagement of this type (and, for a time, of practically any other type) of rhetorical analysis. In addition, the authors' accessible (but not simplistic) writing style and use of narrative made the book a very pleasant "read".
My suggestions for the next addition fo this book (and I do hope that there will be a next edition)can be encompassed by one word: more.
The first three chapters, which are devoted, in effect, to "everything you ever wanted to know about the history of rhetoric but were afraid to ask" need to be at least twice as long as they currently are in order to provide at least a bit more of a complete and coherent analysis of the people,ideas, and events that are being discussed. Much the same assessment can be made of the fourth chapter, which deals with the application of the theories and methodologies of the social sciences to the study of human communication.
However, it is the fifth chapter, which deals with "enduring issues" and "enduring value" in the field of communication study, that most needs "beefing up". While I believe that the issues that are being advanced are important ones I question whether a "general reader" could make meaningful sense of the authors' analyses as they are currently being presented. I believe that this observation has particular force where the nature and impacts of Plato's "dark shadow" are discussed.
This is a good book, as it is. "Fleshed out", this book could be a very good book.
Good Overview.......2004-01-25
As a teacher and student of Philosophy and Communication, I can say that Dues and Brown really capture the historical roots of the Communication discipline in a volume thinner than my little finger. This is an excellent resource for all Communication scholars, and a great book to use in a survey course. D&B capture the essential elements of history and philosophy in a way that no one else could!
Average customer rating:
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Boxing In The Shadows
Thomas Donelson
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 059542810X |
Book Description
Boxing In The Shadows is the story of many great Black fighters throughout the past century and puts their accomplishments within the context of the era that they fought in. This book is the seventh book that Mr. Donelson has written or co-written. Mr. Donelson has written on a variety of subjects over the past three decades and been published in newspapers and publications, Mr. Donelson is a leading observer of the boxing scene as well as a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, the leading boxing historical society.
About Mr. Donelson, Ringsports.com Rusty Rubin writes, "Tom Donelson is an outstanding scribe in describing the world of boxing. This is why I asked Mr. Donelson to co-authored our book, Billy Soose, The Champion that Time Forgot."
Average customer rating:
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The Shadows of Boxing: Prince Naseem Hamed & Those He Left Behind
Geoffrey Beattie
Manufacturer: Orion Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
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ASIN: 0752849794 |
Book Description
Prince Naseem is the one of most charismatic boxers the sport has ever seen. From his early days at Brendan Ingle's gym in Wincobank, Sheffield, he fought his way to his first world title in 1995, and is now a household name. The Shadows of Boxing visits Prince Naseem's roots, chronicles the contrasting fortunes of the hard men of Ingle's gym, and looks at how the Hamed family have coped with the incredible pressures of fame. It also features the first major interview with Naz since his defeat at the hands of Marco Antonio Barrera.
Book Description
SHADOW BOX is one of George Plimpton's most engaging looks at professional sport through the eyes of an amateur.
Stepping into the ring against the light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore, Plimpton pauses to wonder why he ever became a participatory journalist. Bloodied but unbowed, he holds his own in the bout - and brings back this timeless look at boxing and its devotees, among them Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer.
Customer Reviews:
Pound For Pound It's Right Up There On My Shelf.......2004-08-24
Pound For Pound It's Right Up There On My Shelf
There is something so incredibly magical and almost supernatural about this time in boxing - when Muhammad Ali was THE man, when Joe Frazier was a machine - an honest to goodness machine - take 100 punches just to land that left hook. This was the time when Ken Norton was a riddle that Ali couldn't figure out...and when Big George Foreman was simply concurring the world - destroying myths, legends and knocking everything down.
George Plimpton captures that feeling - it's not thrown in your face, but you can feel it.
The boxers and fights are slightly on the peripheral of the story he's sharing. It's mostly about him and his experiences with boxers, boxing and other writers, but it is about boxing and in the time when boxing was amazing.
It's a great book for the boxing fan and a great book for the literary fan.
Pound for pound one of the greats!
A sharp study of boxing-- and mortality.......2001-07-11
This is, for my money, Plimpton's best book. Informative, funny, philosophical (there's a long section on the deaths of authors-- how they died, and how they'd _like_ to die), historical-- somehow it fits together beautifully, and amuses on every page. I've recommended this to many friends, some of whom don't care for boxing; they share my enthusiasm for it. Plimpton seems to be living to a ripe old age-- he deserves many more years of happiness for all the good writing he's done, especially here.
Droll yet witty insight into professional boxing pre 1980..........1999-02-03
George begins his book with his experience of sparring with the great Archie Moore and goes on to discuss the inside machinations/ events/ incidents of professional boxing into the years of Muhammad Ali. His humbling experience early in the piece leads to not only words of self deprecation but also serves as a reference point for his understanding of those in the sport he admires, those who are unique and the bad elements prevalent in the world of boxing. Overall the book is insightful and funny, and at times unique in perspective. Definitely worth picking up a copy...
I enjoyed every page........1998-09-28
There are few finer story tellers than Plimpton. This is one of his best and funniest works. Some remarkable stories.
Not fit to carry anyone's jock.......1997-09-19
More crap from Plimpton, the very definition of athletic supporter
Customer Reviews:
Bare little book.......2005-12-26
Not much to say about this book. Through drawings, it demonstrates three Long Fist forms. The drawings are very clear, and there are arrows (solid for the left side of the body, dotted for the right side) that show where the body will move for the next move. There are no applications, no demonstration of the basics, just three forms, but they are shown in a manner which makes them easy to follow and learn.
Average customer rating:
- Boxing and Growing Up
- Shadow Boxer
- Awesome story about courage and wisdom.
- Shadow Boxer -- a mystical student from Westchester
- Sad, and tragic
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Shadow Boxer
Chris Lynch
Manufacturer: HarperTeen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Lynch, Chris
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ASIN: 0064471128 |
Book Description
I was nine years old the first time I hit my father and made him bleed. He was proud.
It's now five years after his father's death, and fourteen-year-old George is the man of the family. He knows all too well how brutal the life of a fighter can be. Didn't it kill his father?
But Monty, George's younger brother, has a completely different attitude. Boxing comes naturally to him. It's in his blood. He thinks of it as his father's legacy.
Unless George figures out a way to stop it, will boxing kill Monty, too?
Customer Reviews:
Boxing and Growing Up.......2007-07-04
When he was nine and his brother Monty was seven, George's father died from a brain hemorrhage due to years of boxing. Before he died, he spent a lot of time with George, teaching him life lessons, lessons about fighting and about learning the right way not to have to fight. George took these lessons seriously, and after his father died he vowed to watch out for Monty and to make sure these same lessons were passed along.
Everything was easy when Monty was little and looked up to George. But now that he is eleven, he is beginning to think for himself and to question his big brother's words. The most problematic issue is that Monty seems to be far too interested in boxing for George's or their mother's taste. He doesn't remember how his father's mind went in the end and what boxing did to him; he only thinks of his father as some sort of hero. George is terrified that his little brother will turn out like their father did. But how can he make Monty see the truth about boxing without making their father look bad?
I liked that this novel was told in short stories, most of them not about boxing, but all of which gave a well-rounded picture of what the relationship was between George and Monty. I also liked that this was a novel about discovery and growing up, instead of just being about boxing as I had expected.
I thought that George was a bit mean and overbearing, though. I can understand that he was trying to protect his brother, but if I were Monty, I would not have stood for his telling me what to do for as long as Monty did.
Shadow Boxer.......2003-05-21
Shadow Boxer by Chris Lynch was a great book for the younger teenage audience. This heartfelt story is about an older brother trying to guide and show his younger brother the way because their father is not around to do it. Their father died several years before from boxing and Monty, the youngest of the two brothers had caught the boxing bug. George, his mother, and the boys uncle Archy do everything they can to get Monty out of the ring. In the end they expose him to the truth to bring him back to reality.
The story takes place in inner city New York and deals with many of the hardships that inner city youth face. The boys are introduced to a ýbig brotherý because there mom fears it may be the only way to save Monty and that it may do the boys some good. George takes this offensively because it makes him feel as though he has screwed up on raising his younger brother who assumes responsibility for.
I would recommend reading this book because it is an easy read for the high school level and it is a really great book. From the beginning you connect with the characters and really get an understanding for why they are the way they are. As an older brother I really enjoyed seeing how George felt the responsibility for his younger brother and always wanted to protect him.
Awesome story about courage and wisdom........2002-12-15
This book is about a courageous boy named George, who goes through many hardships in his life. When he was just a little boy, he knocked his father, and made him drip blood. But his father wasn't mad, he was happy. This is an excellent story to move your heart. When hardships and friendships intervene with each other. Monty, Geoge's little brother is a young little man, who want to be just like his father was. A great boxing hero. But George doesn't want Monty to die a tradgic death like his father. But the spirit of Monty is too strong. Will George stop Monty? Or will the past repeat itself?
Shadow Boxer -- a mystical student from Westchester.......2002-10-07
Shadow Boxer is a book in my opinion with mixed emotions. I feel that it is mostly a tragic story. It has humor every now and then about little things like an elephant man. In this book, the characters are misled about their father. The kids grow up thinking that their father is one of the best boxers there ever was, but later in the story they find out that he isn't that great of a boxer. I also think that George (one of the main characters) loses a large, important, part of his life growing up being considered as the man of the house. I feel that it was a large weight put on his shoulder at the young age that he has. To me this book is very realistic. The author realy makes the characters come alive, and you can really feel the emotins that author discribes.
Sad, and tragic.......2002-09-10
This book, really hit the spot. As I read it to my...brother, he even cried. Although, he didn't understand a thing. Chris Lynch made is so sad, funny and everything else a person can want. A boys life, as boxing makes it go down, and all the other side stories
Average customer rating:
- A Masterpiece
- Enjoyable but labored
- American History Brought To Life
- Vaccaro does it again
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1941 -- The Greatest Year In Sports: Two Baseball Legends, Two Boxing Champs, and the Unstoppable Thoroughbred Who Made History in the Shadow of War
Mike Vaccaro
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0385517955
Release Date: 2007-06-05 |
Book Description
Joe DiMaggio . . . Ted Williams . . . Joe Louis . . . Billy Conn . . . Whirlaway
Against the backdrop of a war that threatened to consume the world, these athletes transformed 1941 into one of the most thrilling years in sports history.
In the summer of 1941, America paid attention to sports with an intensity that had never been seen before. World War II was raging in Europe and headlines grew worse by the day; even the most optimistic people began to accept the inevitability of the United States being drawn into the conflict. In sports pages and arenas at home, however, an athletic perfect storm provided unexpected—and uplifting—relief. Four phenomenal sporting events were underway, each destined to become legend.
In 1941—The Greatest Year in Sports, acclaimed sportswriter Mike Vaccaro chronicles this astounding moment in history. Fueled by a somber mania for sports—a desire for good news to drown out the bad—Americans by the millions fervently watched, listened, and read as Joe DiMaggio dazzled the country by hitting in a record-setting fifty-six consecutive games; Ted Williams powered through an unprecedented .406 season; Joe Louis and Billy Conn (the heavyweight and light-heavyweight champions) battled in unheard-of fashion for boxing’s ultimate championship; and the phenomenal (some say deranged) thoroughbred, Whirlaway, raced to three heart-stopping victories that won the coveted Triple Crown of horse racing. As Phil Rizzuto perfectly expressed, “You read the sports section a lot because you were afraid of what you’d see in other parts of the paper.”
Gripping and nostalgic, 1941—The Greatest Year in Sports focuses on these four seminal events and brings to life the national excitement and remarkable achievement (many of these records still stand today), as well as the vibrant lives of the athletes who captivated the nation. With vast insight, Vaccaro pulls back the veil on DiMaggio’s anxieties and the building pressure of “The Streak,” and chronicles the brash, young confidence Williams displayed as he hammered his way through the baseball season largely in DiMaggio’s shadow. He takes readers inside the head of Billy Conn, a kid who traded in his light-heavyweight belt for a shot at the very decent and very powerful Joe Louis, and tells the story of the fire-breathing racehorse, Whirlaway, who was known either for setting track records or tearing off in the wrong direction.
Rich in historical detail and edge-of-your-seat reporting, Mike Vaccaro has crafted a lasting, important book that captures a portrait of one of America’s most trying, and extraordinary, eras.
Customer Reviews:
A Masterpiece.......2007-08-18
Simply a magnificient book, a great read, absolutely the best sports book of 2007. This one shouldn't be missed. Mike, thank you for authoring a classic.
Enjoyable but labored.......2007-07-31
I found the prose somewhat tedious and Vaccaro's scene painting dull. This was an incredible year, but I never felt entranced, as those who lived through it did, but only moderately interested. The writing is mostly drawn from contemporary newspapers, which adds the glow of excitement but loses the analysis. The Joe and Ted we read about here are glosses on the far more complex and nasty men they were, and I felt that the whole thing tried too hard to be a cultural exploration and didn't try hard enough to tell the story with gusto. Mike Vaccaro is not a historian, and it shows here.
Just didn't work for me.
American History Brought To Life.......2007-06-29
I have read the definitive biographies recently written about Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams and wondered if I really needed to take a chance of this book. What a pleasant surprise! Author Mike Vaccaro kept me riveted in his description of DiMaggio gulping down coffee and chain smoking his way in his quest for another hit to keep his streak going. The personality of Teddy Ballgame comes through loud and clear in his chase to become the first .400 hitter since Bill Terry in 1930. I am not a fan of boxing or horse racing, but the Joe Louis and Billy Conn fight held at the Polo Grounds made me feel as though I was there. I couldn't put the book down. I'd heard of Whirlway, but that's as much as I knew. He won the triple crown in 1941 and was famous for his long tail. I'd heard Clem McCarthy describe the race on a Gillette phonograph record several years ago, and this book made it more meaningful to me. The same with the Louis/Conn fight. This is more than a sports' book. It is American history with the country wondering if war would soon include them. What a year! Thanks, Mike Vaccaro, for bringing it alive to your readers.
Vaccaro does it again.......2007-06-10
I am a big fan of Mike Vaccaro's writing and he has impressed me yet again. Mike lyrically weaves the details, histories and human dimensions of the four incredible athletic events of 1941; all in the context of an America on its way to a nation altering war. He adds so many dimensions to the stories through his detailed research and anecdotal style. It's a great summertime read for sports fans and history fans alike.
Books:
- Shooting Stars Omnibus : Cinnamon, Ice, Rose and Honey
- Starting Strength
- The Art of Speed Reading People: How to Size People Up and Speak Their Language
- The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
- The Breakaway Brand: How Great Brands Stand Out
- The Celebrant: A Novel
- The Eternal Summer: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Hogan in 1960, Golf's Golden Year
- The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, Book 5)
- The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
- The Inner Ring
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation
- Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins: The Autobiography
- Distinguished Asian American Business Leaders
- History: Fiction or Science
- Jimi Hendrix - Experience Hendrix
- The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traum
- Law and Ecology: The Rise of the Ecosystem Regime
- Commercial Fire Underwriting
- Financial Institutions, Valuations, Mergers and Acquisitions
- Oh, Play That Thing
Portals To Cleansing
How to Minister Freedom: Helping Others Break the Bonds of Sexual Brokenness, Emotional Woundedness, Demonic Oppression and Occult Bondage
Freedom From The Religious Spirit
Discerning of Spirits
Shame: Identity Thief
