ON FOREIGN SHORES—ORIGINES (ORIGINS)
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Showing posts with label FIGHT NOVELS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FIGHT NOVELS. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
FIGHT NOVELS: FIGHTCARD ~ THE CUTMAN!
JACK TUNNEY
COMING IN MAY 2011 FOR YOUR KINDLE . . .
1953: Ex-Korean War vet Mickey Flynn has been through some harsh battles in his life, and his latest is in Havana, Cuba. While on a layover from his job as a merchant mariner, Mickey runs afoul of a local crime boss over a women - one of Mickey's greatest weaknesses.
When the woman ends up murdered and Mickey is framed for the killing, he ends up in an illegal fight to the death in an off-the-books arena manged by the Mafia and guarded by the Havana police. Even if he defeats the hulking monster in the ring, there's no guarantee he can get out of the city alive.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
FIGHT NOVELS: BLESS ME FATHER
MARK KREIGEL
Reminiscent of the work of Pete Dexter, this stunning novel of crime, vengeance, and redemption, set on New York City's meanest streets, revolves around one desperate man who will do anything to regain his honor--and another who will do anything to save his soul. Frank Battaglia is a swaggering soldier of the Mafia, greedy for the power generations of thugs have taken as their right and compelled by an inner demon to rip away the shame that surrounds him like a shroud.
As a young fighter, Frank fell apart in the ring at Madison Square Garden, a humiliation witnessed by the most powerful gangster in the city. In Frank's eyes, only one person can salvage his reputation: his son Nicky. Life, however, is not as Frank envisions it. The Village, once the unquestioned fiefdom of the Mob, has gone sour on him, turned into a haven for yuppies. And Nicky, devastated by the suicide of his older brother, wants only to play basketball, lose his virginity, and listen to sweet soul music, his brother's legacy to him.
His father's plan to make him a champion in the boxing ring and on the streets repels and horrifies him. But when the gangland-style murder of the city's last great Mafia don puts Frank on the front pages of the tabloids, Nicky discovers a terrible truth about his father--and the truth about what it means to be a tough guy in the nightmare universe of New York's underground.
Resounding with the authentic voices of New York City and pounding to the beat of the streets, Bless Me, Father is a gritty, chilling portrait of what life is really like in the Mafia, where men are sacrificed, destroyed, and, sometimes, made whole in the name of honor.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
FIGHT NOVELS: EVERY TIME I TALK TO LISTON
BRIAN DE VIDO
A rousing page-turner about a boxer on the downside of his career who helps a troubled but talented contender make his way to the top.
Aging and not as quick as he used to be, Amos "Scrap Iron" Fletcher has finally arrived in Las Vegas, capital city of boxing. His years of slugging it out as a sparring partner for heavyweight contenders are about to pay off. But after his first big-league fight ends in defeat-and when he's falsely accused of offering to sell secrets to his sparring partner's opponent-he heads back home to Trenton to figure out his next move.
It's there, at his uncle's boxing gym that he's reunited with TNT, another boxer down on his luck. TNT is a reckless but kindhearted kid who just happens to throw some of the toughest punches Amos has ever seen. TNT's hunger for vindication rekindles Amos's passion for the sport, and he agrees to take the neglected young fighter under his wing.
With a little help from boxing idol Sonny Liston, who's always in the back of his mind, Amos forms a training strategy for TNT and launches a daring gambit to reclaim his own reputation. So begins Amos and TNT's thrilling ascent-guided by Liston's defiant spirit-to the title fight that every boxer dreams about: the Heavyweight Championship of the World.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
FIGHT NOVELS: DOWN FOR THE COUNT
STUART KAMINSKY
Was heavyweight champion Joe Louis framed? He's innocent, yet he has something to hide. Private eye Toby Peters agrees to help the champ, but he gets embroiled in a sensational fight scam and a bloody trail of deception.
Monday, December 27, 2010
FIGHT NOVELS: BRING YOUR LEGS WITH YOU
DARRELL SPENCER
Winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, this set of interconnected stories center around a retired prize fighter living in Las Vegas. The characters are as unforgettable and intriguing as the dialogue.
A boxer who brings his legs with him comes to the ring with the strength and stamina to make it through every round of a tough fight. In this new collection, winner of the prestigious Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Darrell Spencer delivers fiction with just that kind of power.
Bring Your Legs with You contains nine interconnected stories set in Las Vegas. Featuring various perspectives and narrators, they are filled with unforgettable characters, including Carl T. Plugg, a sharp-dressed, smooth-talking, non-hustling pool shark; Spinoza, the philosophical day laborer with "Department of Big Thoughts" lettered on the door of his pickup; Jacob, an arrogant lawyer who learns too late the dangers of swimming with the sharks; Gus, a man who has never seen his son fight despite his insatiable fascination with the sweet science; and Jane, a woman wary of her ex-husband, but still in love enough to share her bed with him.
Above them all looms Tommy Rooke, retired prizefighter and self-employed roofer. Undefeated in the ring, Rooke walked away from boxing at the top of his game, to the confusion and consternation of his friends and family. As his father, former manager, and various other hangers-on encourage him to stage a comeback, Tommy moves through the gated communities and sun-blasted strip malls of Las Vegas, wrestling with personal choice, the caprices of fate, and the price the gods demand for our sins.
More than a book about boxing, gambling, luck, and broken dreams, Bring Your Legs with You delves deeply into the life of its flawed but intelligent hero, a man deeply devoted to his friends but lost in a violent world. A writer unafraid to show the connections between people, Spencer delivers a hard-hitting collection filled with rich dialogue and spare prose.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
FIGHT NOVELS: THE CANVAS COFFIN
WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT
Luke Pilgrim, a middleweight champion, was punch-drunk after a bout with Charley Retzer, and he couldn't remember whether that night he had killed Brenda Vane, the girl he had taken home after the party, whose body had been found badly beaten up. Filled with horror he turned sleuth, and started on an unending search, running the terrified gauntlet between what he remembered, and what he might find out.
FIGHT NOVELS: ROCKY ~ THE ULTIMATE GUIDE!
Rocky: The Ultimate Guide is the official companion book to the Rocky series.
Published in 2006 by DK Publishing with the cooperation of Sylvester Stallone and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The coffee table book covers all six films in detail, with synopses, behind-the-scenes stories and full color photos. We learn more about the series' major characters like Rocky, Paulie, Adrian and all of Rocky's colorful opponents through interesting character profiles. Every one of Rocky's major fights, from his first with Apollo Creed to his final with Mason "The Line" Dixon, are covered round for round.
The book is 144 pages and was written by entertainment journalist Edward Gross, with a foreword by Sylvester Stallone.
FIGHT NOVELS: ROCKY BALBOA NOVELIZATION
Rocky Balboa is adapted from the final 2007 Rocky movie and is sure to appeal to fans of the Rocky franchise everywhere.
FIGHT NOVELS: ROCKY III NOVELIZATION!
"The explosive new chapter in the Champion Heavyweight story of all time!"
The Rocky III novelization written by Robert E. Hoban based on Rocky III's screenplay by Sylvester Stallone.
FIGHT NOVELS: ROCKY II NOVELIZATION!
The Rocky II novelization was written by Sylvester Stallone and published in 1979. There are some added details of the Rocky II story apparent in the novel but absent from the movie.
There is a minor character in the novel named Chink Weber, who hails from Jersey. This bears a striking resemblance to Chuck Wepner, the only boxer to knockout Muhammad Ali. Wepner also hails from New Jersey and it is in this fight that Sylvester Stallone found his inspiration for the first Rocky movie. We also learn of Rocky's minor criminal offences. There is more detail of Paulie's involvement with Rocky's previous employer, Tony Gazzo.
FIGHT NOVELS: ROCKY NOVELIZATION!
THE MOVIE . . .
'A slum fairy tale . . . funny, unpretentious and relentlessly upbeat . . . its only message – endure, reach your potential, be a man . . . I can't recall such excitement about a movie since, maybe, Giant and James Dean!' ~ Time magazine.
'An oasis of upbeat expectations. Hardened cinema cynics have actually been seen standing up and cheering!' ~ New York magazine.
'One of the best boxing movies ever made – maybe the best' ~ Pete Hamill.
. . . IS A BOOK
That - like the movie - will have you laughing, crying and cheering out loud!
He came from nowhere to within a heartbeat of victory . . .
Then, suddenly, success was more difficult to live with than failure – and the downward path began.
He remembered once more the struggle from the streets, the agony, the rejection and the pain.
But would he have the chance to fight back? The chance to love and live again?
Monday, December 6, 2010
FIGHT NOVELS: BLACK AJAX!
GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER
A rip-roaring fictional retelling of the story of black bare-knuckle prizefighter Tom Molineaux, an American freed slave who challenged England's beloved heavyweight champion Tom Cribb in the early years of the 19th century. The same fractious energy that characterizes Fraser's popular Flashman novels courses throughout this wonderfully flavorful tale, which, following a Prologue set in 1818 (Molineaux's last year), presents the testimony of various "witnesses” to the fighters life and career as elicited by an unnamed “industrious inquirer.”
The most voluble talkers are Thomas Paddington Jones and mulatto Bill Richmond, the retired pugilists who train and manage Tom; noted boxing journalist Pierce Egan (whose hyperbolic prose is expertly re-created); and especially Captain Buckley Buck Flashman (father of the better-known Harry), a good-natured rogue who charms all and sundry with mellifluous harangues about the exhilarating horrors of the Napoleonic Wars and the merry licentiousness of the good old daysand who's equally capable of supervising Tom's career and of betraying his fighter for a fast purse.
It all races by so quickly that there's scarcely time to savor the glorious period argot (much of it explained in a hilarious and helpful Glossary). You'd have to be dicked in the nob to dislike this book. It's bloody marvelous.
FIGHT NOVELS: THE POWER OF ONE!
BRUCE COURTNEY
THE MOST EPIC BOXING NOVEL OF ALL TIME, THE POWER OF ONE HAS BEEN IN MY TOP TEN FAVORITE NOVELS SINCE THE FIRST TIME I READ IT TEN YEARS AGO. WHENEVER I READ IT AGAIN, IT NEVER FAILS TO MOVE ME. AN AMAZING STORY WITH BOXING AT ITS HEART . . .
THE POWER OF ONE
First with your head and then with your heart . . . So says Hoppie Groenewald, boxing champion, to a seven-year-old boy who dreams of being the welterweight champion of the world. For the young Peekay, it is a piece of advice he will carry with him throughout his life.
Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, young Peekay will come to lead all the tribes of Africa. Through enduring friendships, he gains the strength he needs to win out. And in a final conflict with his childhood enemy, Peekay will fight to the death for justice . . .
Friday, December 3, 2010
FIGHT NOVELS: SUCKER PUNCH!
RAY BANKS
The world of small-time boxing makes for an irresistible backdrop in noir fiction. Films such as Fat City and The Set-Up gained classic status by their dramatic depiction of the hopeless nature of that world and those who inhabit it. There are very few options for these people, and almost all of them end in flames. This is the message delivered in Sucker Punch, a 2007 novel by British author Ray Banks.
FOR A FULL REVIEW CLICK HERE
Thursday, December 2, 2010
FIGHT NOVELS: FLESH AND BLOOD!
PETE HAMMILL
They were mother and son. Kate and Bobby Fallon. He was to become the best white heavyweight of his generation, a rough, handsome contender from the streets and bars of Brooklyn. She was beautiful and alone.
In this tough, lyrical novel, Pete Hamill tells their story. He follows Bobby's rise from the obscurity of back alleys and prison to triumphant evenings in great arenas. Along the way, Bobby Fallon meets Gus Caputo, a trainer who is in boxing "for the beauty," and who sees the young man as his last chance to create a masterpiece. The hard, grueling process of learning a violent art has never been described with greater accuracy or more power.
Alongside the story of Bobby Fallon's ring career is the story of a sexual obsession. In lean, fast-moving prose, Hamill explores the sexual roots of Bobby's violence. With great feeling and lyrical power he traces Fallon's forbidden love affair, from its beginnings one snowy Christmas Day in New York to its culmination in the glittering casinos of Las Vegas.
Dominating the background of Bobby and Kate's story is a man who has become a memory: a midnight gambler named Jack Fallon, a man of charm and sudden angers, a man who was good with his hands, a man of terrifying courage -- Bobby's father and Kate's husband who one afternoon long ago walked out into America and vanished. In the years since, he haunts the lives of Kate and Bobby Fallon, and completes the triangle in which their lives are bound.
FIGHT NOVELS: SPLIT DECISION
DICK VONIER
A young man evolves from amateur boxing to Golden Gloves to professional.
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