Leigh Montville

When Cassius Clay joined the Nation of Islam, changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and refused military service for religious reasons, he was stripped of his boxing license, and stood at the center of an incendiary legal case that gripped the nation. Montville presents an intimate portrait of a pivotal five-year span-- 1966 to 1971-- during which Ali evolved into a politically aware, bombastic public figure who would forge a complicated relationship...

From a "New York Times"-bestselling author comes the riveting new biography that pulls back the red, white, and blue cape on a cultural icon--and reveals the unknown, complex, and controversial man known to millions around the world as Evel Knievel.

John Montague was a boisterous enigma. He had a bagful of golf tricks, on and off the course. He could knock a bird off a wire from 170 yards, and when the big man arrived in Hollywood in the early 1930s, he quickly became a celebrity among celebrities. He played golf with everyone from Howard Hughes to Babe Ruth and his close friend Bing Crosby, whom he famously beat with only a rake, a shovel, and a bat. Yet strangely Montague never entered a professional...

In 1918, the Boston Red Sox won their fifth World Series, thanks in great part to the young pitching and hitting sensation Babe Ruth, or The Bambino. Following the 1919 season, in which the team failed to make the Series, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold the Babe to the New York Yankees. The Sox have never won a Series since. Told with humor in the face of heartache, focuses not on the players who have come and gone, but on the die-hard fans who live...