“I can lick any son-of-a-bitch in the world.” So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sport for more than a decade, and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American Dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston’s Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. In the process, the “Boston Strong Boy” transformed boxing from outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today. Strong Boy tells the story of America’s first sports superstar, a self-made man who personified the power and excesses of the Gilded Age. Everywhere John L. Sullivan went, his fists backed up his bravado. Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his 75-round bout against Jake Kilrain, and his cross-country barnstorming tour in which he literally challenged all of America to a fight are recounted in vivid detail, as are his battles outside the ring with a troubled marriage, wild weight and fitness fluctuations, and raging alcoholism. Strong Boy gives readers ringside seats to the colorful tale of one of the country’s first Irish-American heroes and the birth of the American sports media and the country’s celebrity obsession with athletes.

Essentially the last of the bare-knuckle heavyweight champions, John L. Sullivan was instrumental in the acceptance of gloved fighting. His charisma and popular appeal during this transitional period contributed greatly to making boxing a nationally popular, "legitimate" sport. Sullivan became boxing's first superstar and arguably the first of any sport. From his first match in the late 1870s through his final championship fight in 1892, this biography contains a thoroughly researched, detailed accounting of John L. Sullivan's boxing career. With special attention to the 1880s, the decade during which Sullivan came to prominence, it follows Sullivan's skill development and discusses his opponents and fights in detail, providing various viewpoints of a single event. Beginning with a discussion of early boxing practices, the sport itself is placed within sociological, legal and historical contexts including anti-prize fighting laws and the so-called "color line." A complete record of Sullivan's career is also included.

"Whether consciously molding the city through the construction of public spaces or developing social ties through organizations such as athletic clubs, Bostonians of all classes participated in recreation-based community building, often at cross-purposes. Elite Bostonians, for instance, promoted the establishment of parks as a healthy alternative to unsavory activities, such as drinking and gambling, that they associated with the city's vast new pool of immigrants. They were soon forced to compromise, however, with citizens who were less interested in the rhetoric of moral uplift than in using the parks for competitive athletics and commercial amusements."--BOOK JACKET.

In 1892, while training for his historic fight with Gentleman Jim Corbett, undefeated heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan wrote "Reminiscences of a 19th Century Gladiator," a summation of his extraordinary life and career. In the book, the "Boston Strong Boy" shares with the reader the story of his humble origins and the obstacles, both legal and personal, that he had to overcome to become the most famous boxer of the 19th century. This deluxe edition of the book contains additional material including never-before-included photographs, newspaper accounts, and interviews.

Flanked by gorgeous brick row houses in the heart of Boston's South End, the Club Café is a bar where everybody knows your name--and who you slept with last. Every night men like Tommy Perez, Rico DiMio, and Kyle Andrews take their place among the glistening crowd sporting chest-defining shirts and lots of smooth, tanned skin, sizing up the regulars and the new blood while TV monitors blare Beyoncé and Missy Elliott. For Tommy, Thursdays at the Club Café in the company of his wingman Rico and a Skinny Black Bitch (vodka and Diet Coke) are unmissable. Recently relocated from Miami to Boston to take a reporting job at The Boston Daily, Tommy is finding it hard to break away from his tight-knit Cuban family, but his homesickness goes into rapid remission when he meets Mikey, a blue-eyed, boyish guidance counselor from Cape Cod. Smart, funny, and wicked cute, Mikey is perfect boyfriend material. . .until his drinking leads Tommy to suspect that he's got some issues of his own. Rico--a tough-talking, Italian-American accountant with a gamma ray smile and mournful green eyes that hint at a past he'll admit to no one--is sure Mikey is bad news, but to Rico any relationship that lasts longer than three hours sounds like bad news. Then there's Kyle, the lean, preening model and former reality show star who makes a red-carpet entrance into the CC every Thursday as if a swarm of cameras still follows his every move, but whose real life is about to take a dramatic turn he never anticipated. Over the course of one unforgettable year, Tommy is forced to rethink everything he's ever believed about life, lust, and love. And in the Club Café, a place filled with endless possibilities--of stumbling upon the perfect partner, the perfect story idea, or just a play buddy for the night--Tommy might finally discover the person he was meant to be. "Make way for the boys of summer! Johnny Diaz has written a sexy beach-read romp you won't be able to put down." --William J. Mann, author of Where the Boys Are and All American Boy

A knockout biography of John L. Sullivan that puts the fabled boxing champ squarely in the context of his rough-and-tumble times. Drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources, including the scandalous National Police Gazette, Isenberg (History/Annapolis) recounts how Sullivan brawled his way from a working-class background in Boston's Irish ghetto to the top of the prizefighting world.

Veteran journalists Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge have written the definitive inside look at the Boston Marathon bombings with a unique, Boston-based account of the events that riveted the world. From the Tsarnaev brothers' years leading up to the act of terror to the bomb scene itself (which both authors witnessed first-hand within minutes of the blast), from the terrifying police shootout with the suspects to the ultimate capture of the younger brother, Boston Strong: A City's Triumph over Tragedy reports all the facts-and so much more. Based on months of intensive interviews, this is the first book to tell the entire story through the eyes of those who experienced it. From the cop first on the scene, to the detectives assigned to the manhunt, the authors provide a behind-the-scenes look at the investigation. More than a true-crime book, Boston Strong also tells the tragic but ultimately life-affirming story of the victims and their recoveries and gives voice to those who lost loved ones. With their extensive reporting, writing experience, and deep ties to the Boston area, Sherman and Wedge create the perfect match of story, place, and authors. If you're only going to read one book on this tragic but uplifting story, this is it.

A Black mother bumps up against the limits of everything she thought she believed—about science and medicine, about motherhood, and about her faith—in search of the truth about her son. "The memoir dedicates important space to the numbing bureaucracy that often accompanies medical visits, particularly as seen through the eyes of a Black woman in the South. Having moved often within White neighborhoods and educational institutions around her home in Charlottesville, Harris is unflinching about her periodic unease in those quarters. . . Harris also brings humor to bear in moments of great adversity."—Karen Iris Tucker, Washington Post One morning, Tophs, Taylor Harris’s round-cheeked, lively twenty-two-month-old, wakes up listless, only lifting his head to gulp down water. She rushes Tophs to the doctor, ignoring the part of herself, trained by years of therapy for generalized anxiety disorder, that tries to whisper that she’s overreacting. But at the hospital, her maternal instincts are confirmed: something is wrong with her boy, and Taylor’s life will never be the same. With every question the doctors answer about Tophs’s increasingly troubling symptoms, more arise, and Taylor dives into the search for a diagnosis. She spends countless hours trying to navigate health and education systems that can be hostile to Black mothers and children; at night she googles, prays, and interrogates her every action. Some days, her sweet, charismatic boy seems just fine; others, he struggles to answer simple questions. A long-awaited appointment with a geneticist ultimately reveals nothing about what’s causing Tophs’s drops in blood sugar, his processing delays—but it does reveal something unexpected about Taylor’s own health. What if her son’s challenges have saved her life? This Boy We Made is a stirring and radiantly written examination of the bond between mother and child, full of hard-won insights about fighting for and finding meaning when nothing goes as expected.

"It is impossible to remain unmoved by Gregory's emotional, open memoir of surviving the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. . . . This is a truly feel-good book that doesn't stint on the challenges that life throws at us."--Publishers Weekly, starred review ***** On April 15, 2013, Rebekah Gregory and her five-year-old son waited at the finish line of the Boston Marathon to support a friend who was running. When the blasts of terrorists' homemade bombs packed with nails and screws went off three feet away, Rebekah's legs took the brunt of the blast, protecting her son from certain death. Eighteen surgeries and sixty-five procedures later, her left leg was amputated. Despite the extraordinary trauma she underwent and the nightmares she continues to have, Rebekah sees it as just another part of her personal journey, a journey that has led her through abuse, mistakes, and pain and into the arms of Jesus. This stirring memoir tells the story of her recovery, including her triumphant return to Boston two years later to run part of the race, and explores the peace we experience when we learn to trust God with every part of our lives--the good, the bad, and even the terrifying. Readers will be moved by the joyous way Rebekah is determined to live her life, seeing every obstacle as part of how God forms us into the people we are meant to be. Readers will also find comfort in the message that it's not what they can or can't do that makes the difference, but rather what God, in his mercy, does through them despite it all. Life is hard, but with God all things are possible.

"Biography of Canadian-born, Boston-raised boxer George Dixon (1870-1908), the first Black world champion of any sport and the first Black world boxing champion in any division"--