Manuals of the Science and Art of Teaching. Advanced Ser Book

I never really thought I would read a book about boxing. It's not a subject I'm very interested in or know much about. In fact, right before I started this book, I did a short review of all of the boxers I know by name and realized that I knew most of them from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Awesome.

But when I found out that Sports Illustrated named this book as the best American sports book of all time, I figured I had to give it a read. I'm glad I did.

The Sweet Science is a collection of essays about boxing that A.J. Liebling wrote for the New York in the early to mid 1950s. They cover some of the most famous boxers and fights of the day, including Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, and Archie Moore.

I loved Liebling's voice and prose in these essays. Anyone who can reference both Dicken's Mr. Pickwick, Greek tragic heroes, and Euclidean geometry while writing about boxing is okay in my book. Reading his accounts of the fights made me feel like I was accompanying him there while he provided insightful commentary about tactics, society, and where the particular match belonged in boxing history (which, as a side note, I didn't realize went as far back as it does - Liebling would often refer to famous matches from the 1700s!).

This book also did something I wouldn't have thought possible - it made me want to watch a boxing match. Liebling gave me an appreciation of the tactics and intelligence that is required of a good boxer. Prior to this book, I thought of boxing as purely about one guy being able to hit the other guy harder, but now I know that that is but one part of a larger game. Very cool.