The staff of the New York Post recently published The 40 best books of 2016 you must read immediately. “Ali vs. Inoki: The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launches Sports Entertainment” by Josh Gross made the list.
Ali vs. Inoki: The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launched Sports Entertainment
by Josh Gross (BenBella Books)
A funny, juicy, at times unbelievable tale of a mostly forgotten match between Muhammad Ali and Japanese wrestling champion Antonio Inoki, the book brings us the real-life drama and utter ridiculousness of this ill-advised, ego- and money-driven attempt to combine two sports that had no business interacting in the same ring (in this form, at least).
And the rest of the list:
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (Random House)
Nutshell by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese)
The Girl Who Escaped Isis: This is My Story by Farida Khalaf and Andrea C. Hoffman (Atria)
You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein (Grand Central)
Loner by Teddy Wayne (S&S)
American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales (Knopf)
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House)
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
America the Anxious by Ruth Whippman (St. Martin’s)
The Travelers by Chris Pavone (Crown)
Irena’s Children by Tilar Mazzeo (Gallery Books)
They Call Me Supermensch: A Backstage Pass to the Amazing Worlds of Film, Food, and Rock ’n’ Roll by Shep Gordon (Anthony Bourdain)
Seoul Man: A Memoir of Cars, Culture, Crisis, and Unexpected Hilarity Inside a Korean Corporate Titan by Frank Ahrens (Harper Business)
John Lennon vs. the U.S.A.: The Inside Story of the Most Bitterly Contested and Influential Deportation Case in United States History by Leon Wildes (ABA Publishing)
Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson (Pantheon Books)
Seeing the Real You at Last: Life and Love on the Road with Bob Dylan by Britta Lee Shain (Jawbone Press)
Delta Lady: A Memoir by Rita Coolidge (Harper)
Suck and Blow: And Other Stories I’m Not Supposed to Tell by John Popper (Da Capo Press)
The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe (Little, Brown)
A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century by William F. Buckley Jr. (Crown Forum)
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (Harper)
The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East by Jay Solomon (Random House)
Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion by Paul Bloom (Ecco)
The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech by Kimberly Strassel (Twelve)
Disrupted: My Misadventures in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons (Hachette)
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich (Random House)
Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing by Jennifer Weiner (Atria)
Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship by Isabel Vincent (Algonquin)
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)
Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul by Clara Bingham (Random House)
Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant (Crown)
Moonglow by Michael Chabon (Harper)
The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew (Pantheon)
Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author by Herman Wouk (S&S)
Sunny’s Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World by Tim Sultan (Random House)
The Letter Writer by Dan Fesperman (Knopf)
The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria by Janine di Giovanni (Liveright)
Mango & Bambang: The Not-a-Pig by Polly Faber ( Candlewick Press)
Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge (Nation Books)
