Between 1970 and 2010, an area just 45.55 square metres in size in the Eastern Cape produced an astonishing 22 boxing world champions and 50 national champions. That place was Mdantsane. Described as ‘The Mecca of Boxing in South Africa’, this single community has accounted for 33 per cent of South African boxing world champions since the 1920s.

Driven by a lifelong fascination with the sport, in Boxers Die Alone Prof Njabulo S. Ndebele applies his intellectual and philosophical mind to this phenomenon – how it came about and whether it still applies today. He steps past the modern technology that allows us to stream fights in real time, choosing instead to delve deep into the origin story of a township that was constructed intentionally to provide Black labour to a white town. The historical roots of displacement and familiar struggles to find a way out of poverty make the Mdantsane boxing legends all the more extraordinary.

Three champions across three generations are singled out for review – Nkosana ‘Happy Boy’ Mgxaji, Vuyani ‘The Beast’ Bungu and Nkosonathi ‘Mabhere’ Joy. Prof Ndebele brings them vividly to life in a celebration of their triumphant successes against the odds of their circumstances. With sensitivity and insight, he meticulously unpicks the strands of their stories, including their inspiration and aspirations, training routines, the development of their unique boxing styles, their role model status for neighbourhood youngsters, and the vital yet often problematic relationships boxers have with their trainers and managers.

Everybody knows the record the stuff of almanacs, trade magazines and clipping services. A handful know the man. But only Muhammad Ali knows his life as he lived it. The Greatest is Ali's own story.

For six years he worked, traveled and talked with Richard Durham, a writer with a stunning talent, and the result is mesmerizing in its brilliance, drama, humanity and sheer entertainment. This is no documented scrapbook of wins and losses strung together with anecdotes; nor is it a thin potpourri of locker room gags. This book, like Ali who has incited every reaction except indifference goes straight to the place where responses to him have always been the gut.

When the history of the twentieth century is finally recorded, it must include Muhammad Ali. He is "The Greatest."

On a defining evening of the 1980s, Donald Trump hosted celebrities and high rollers in a Jersey Shore town to witness 21-year-old Mike Tyson knock out Michael Spinks in just 91 seconds, earning more than the annual payrolls of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics combined.

Only eight years earlier, Tyson, a troubled child from Brooklyn, was taken under the wing of boxing legend Cus D’Amato in upstate New York. Their story of mutual redemption captivated novelists, screenwriters, and the emerging cable TV industry. Tyson became HBO’s leading man long before Tony Soprano.

Despite the immense success, Tyson's story was more complex and darker than it appeared. Over the decades, he has been villainized, lionized, and fetishized―but never fully humanized until now. Acclaimed biographer Mark Kriegel, who first encountered Tyson as a young reporter, explores Tyson's life through what he survived rather than whom he knocked out.

Tyson, often compared to Jack Dempsey, was more akin to Sonny Liston―Black, feared, and expected to die young. What made Liston a pariah made Tyson a touchstone for a generation influenced by hip hop and gunfire. Kriegel captures not just Tyson’s rise but his profound impact on the American psyche.

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.

As well as looking at the training environment Kandhola focuses on three established figures in boxing: Julius Francis, a four-times British Heavyweight and Commonwealth champion, who Kandhola first photographed in 2000 just before his fight with Mike Tyson; Robert McCracken, who won the British Light Middleweight title in 1994 and the Commonwealth title in 1995 - currently McCracken is Performance Director for the British Olympic team, and personal coach to Carl Froch; and Howard 'Clakka' Clarke who fought at Madison Square Garden for the IBF Light Middleweight Title - he lost, after which his career took a significant nose-dive with him winning only one fight out of his next seventy. He retired in 2007.

The Noble Art of Heavyweight Boxing is a knockout trip through the history of this popular sport, from the last thrilling bareknuckle contest in 1889 between champion John L. Sullivan and challenger Jake Kilrain, right through to modern times, covering key fights and boxing greats such as Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, and many, many more. Illustrated with contemporary photographs and packed with fascinating true details about the personalities and bouts, this book will be a winner with every sports fan and boxing enthusiast.

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.