On bended knee, he leaned over the stricken boxer and counted him out. When he waved the fight over, there was exactly one second to go in the dramatic and brutal world championship bout and Víctor Galíndez had retained his title. But the referee, his shirt stained with the champion’s blood, had cemented his reputation as a cool professional, one destined to become an esteemed figure in world boxing.

South Africa’s own Stanley Christodoulou has officiated an unprecedented 242 world title fights over five decades, some of them among the most iconic in boxing history, and became his nation’s very first inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He rose from humble beginnings, learning his trade in the South African townships of the 1960s, and went on to lead his national boxing board as it sought to shed the racial restrictions of the apartheid era. It was a contribution to his country’s sporting landscape that saw him recognised by the president of the ‘new’ South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

The Life and Times of Stanley Christodoulou is Stanley’s memoir in boxing. It takes the reader to a privileged position, inside the ropes with champions and into the company of boxing legends.

Pulitzer prize nominee and William Hill award-winning writer Thomas Hauser's tribute to Ali, the greatest sporting icon the world has ever seen. Few global personalities have commanded an all-encompassing sporting and cultural audience like Muhammad Ali. Many have tried to interpret in words his impact and legacy. Now, Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest allows us to more fully appreciate the truth and understand both the man and the ways in which he helped recalibrate how the world perceives its transcendent figures. In this companion volume to his seminal biography of Ali, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Hauser provides an updated retrospective of Ali's life. Relying on personal insights, interviews with close associates and other contemporaries of Ali, and memories gathered over the course of decades on the cutting edge of boxing journalism, Hauser explores Ali in detail inside and outside the ring. Muhammad Ali has attained mythical status. But in recent years, he has been subjected to an image makeover by corporate America as it seeks to homogenise the electrifying nature of his persona. Hauser argues that there has been a deliberate distortion of what Ali believed, said, and stood for, and that making Ali more presentable for advertising purposes by sanitising his legacy is a disservice to history and to Ali himself. Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest strips away the revisionism to reveal the true Ali, and, through Hauser's assembled writing and hitherto unpublished essays, recounts the life journey of a man universally recognised as a unique and treasured world icon.

Miami, 1963. A young boy from Louisville, Kentucky, is on the path to becoming the greatest sportsman of all time. Cassius Clay is training in the 5th Street Gym for his heavyweight title clash against the formidable Sonny Liston. He is beginning to embrace the ideas and attitudes of Black Power, and firebrand preacher Malcolm X will soon become his spiritual adviser. Thus Cassius Clay will become 'Cassius X' as he awaits his induction into the Nation of Islam. Cassius also befriends the legendary soul singer Sam Cooke, falls in love with soul singer Dee Dee Sharp and becomes a remarkable witness to the first days of soul music. As with his award-winning soul trilogy, Stuart Cosgrove's intensive research and sweeping storytelling shines a new light on how black music lit up the sixties against a backdrop of social and political turmoil - and how Cassius Clay made his remarkable transformation into Muhammad Ali.

Aged fifty, on a whim, Marion Dunn joined a boxing gym. Training to improve fitness quickly became something of an addiction, and then a source of transformation. This is her myth-busting tale of four years of slogging in an amateur boxing gym in northern England. Marion's story is one of a developing love affair with the 'sweet science'. It's also about obsession, hard work, companionship and occasional bravery. But The Boxing Diaries is not just a story of hard graft. It's a revealing account of life in the amateur boxing gym: its idiosyncratic inhabitants, non-judgmental spirit, dedicated coaches and respect for all comers, irrespective of age or gender - provided their commitment to training is total. From the sweat and toil in draughty halls, Marion takes us through the years of preparation before she is finally ready to spar in the ring. Every micro-improvement, every emotion is laid bare, and along the way she considers the influences and events that might have ignited her passion for the sport in the first place. Warning: this is a knockout memoir that could make you want to start swinging punches, too.

Nothing to lose...When nineteen-year-old Tommy Carter throws away a promising career as a professional boxer to work for local villain Davey Abbott, everyone thinks he's made a huge mistake - collecting debts and working in strip clubs is no life for a young lad just starting out in life. Everything to gain. A brutal fighter, Tommy quickly earns a reputation for himself - feared and respected by everyone - and becomes Davey's trusted right-hand man. But when Davey is murdered Tommy is shocked to learn that Davey has left his business empire to him - Tommy's the boss now. No one believes Tommy will succeed. But there is only one rule Tommy lives by...always back the underdog. Because Tommy is on the way up. This book was previously published as Barking Boy. Another gripping gangland read by Kerry Kaya. Perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers, Martina Cole, Heather Atkinson and Caz Finlay.

Two of the most prominent and celebrated athletes in the world, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard came together to contest the $100million SuperFight on April 6, 1987 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. From Frank Sinatra to U2, Joan Collins to Whoopi Goldberg, the stars were drawn to ringside by the huge box-office appeal of the blue-collar, dominant world middleweight champion facing his nemesis, the charismatic and flamboyant Sugar Ray, who was coming out of virtually five years of retirement. Drawing on his deep reservoir of nerve, outstanding technique and a strategy which Budd Schulberg - who provided Marlon Brando with the immortal line, 'I coulda been a contender' - called a compound optical illusion, Leonard won on points. It was boxing's greatest comeback, but to this day the judges' decision remains bitterly contested and not merely by the protagonists. But the story of The SuperFight is much more than the story of the fight, for it details two remarkable lives, the demons that drove both men and the formidable challenges they overcame inside and outside the ring. Hagler grew up in the Newark, New Jersey ghetto of Central Ward, where a riot/rebellion rooted in racism claimed the lives of 26 people, injured 1,000 more and, to the young teenager, was "like the end of the world". Fuelled by anger, he climbed to the top of his domain and ruled for seven years as champion, one of the most accomplished in boxing's annals. Leonard was an Olympic gold medallist and all-American hero whose career was cut short by a detached retina after he became the world welterweight king. He was Muhammad Ali's gifted and anointed successor but he succumbed to alcohol and drug abuse and for years was tormented by a secret - the sexual abuse he endured as an amateur boxer by a trusted coach. As provocative and polarising in its own way as Ali's defining rivalry with Joe Frazier, this is the story of The SuperFight, of Marvin Hagler and Ray Leonard and a fierce fire that still burns.

One of the most talked-about and bestselling books of last year, this is the no-holds-barred autobiography of a sporting legend driven to the brink of self-destruction The bestseller that has everyone talking. In this, his first, autobiography, 'Iron' Mike Tyson pulls no punches and lays bare the story of his remarkable life and career. Co-written with Larry Sloman, author of Antony Keidis's best-selling memoir 'Scar Tissue', this is a visceral, and unputdown-able story of a man born and raised to brutality, who reached the heights of stardom before falling to crime, substance abuse and infamy. Full of all the controversy and complexity that you would expect from a man who delighted as much as he shocked, this is a book that will surprise and reveals a fascinating character beneath the exterior of violence. If you think you know all about Mike Tyson, read this book and think again.