‘There's more than a few instances in this biography of UFC cult favourite Mark Hunt that make you shake your head in can't-make-this-stuff-up disbelief’ - Inside Sport A powerful story of sadness, hope, pride, honour and triumph from the real-life Rocky! Raw, confronting and honest, UFC champion Mark Hunt's inspiring autobiography shows it is possible to defy the odds and carve a better life. Born into a Mormon Samoan family, Hunt details his harrowing early life, his troubled teen years, and his angry youth with no apparent future. After being plucked from an Auckland street fight and dropped into his first kickboxing bout, Mark went on to achieve unprecedented success in Australian and New Zealand combat sports. In an ongoing career that has spanned the globe, Mark Hunt has been in some of the UFC, Pride and K-1's most memorable battles. But in some ways those fights pale in comparison to that which he has overcome out of the ring and cage. As fearless with his opinions as he is in the Octagon, Mark pulls no punches in revealing the highs and lows of his extraordinary life.

I took some good shots from him and then I opened up my arsenal and we traded toe to toe. I had a burning desire in me to win and started to get him on the back foot, when I put him down with my right hand. He got up and took the count and the ref waved us to continue. I went after him like a predator, and was all over him, lefts and rights smashing into his head. The crowd loved it...To the unsuspecting, Richy Horsley could just be an unassuming thirty-something character. Yet in reality, Crazy Horse, as he is better known, is part of the underbelly of the hardman scene. Boxer, street fighter and bouncer, there are few men tougher. So tough is he that he has even accepted a challenge from Britain's most dangerous prisoner, Charles Bronson, to be his first boxing opponent on Bronson's eventual release.Richy did not become one of the staunchest fighters in the land without his fair share of turmoil. Having lost his father at an early age, he channelled his anger through his fists as he became embroiled in run-ins with the law. It was boxing that saw him turn his rage into something more positive and his anger was used on his opponents in the ring.A true warrior in heart and mind, Richy's name is one to be feared and respected. His story shows that even in the face of overwhelming odds, it is possible to become a real champion.

Nadine Thomas's memoir Born to Fight offers a taste of what it is like growing up in a poverty-stricken, abusive home in rural Jamaica. The story merges humor, determination, and fearlessness and reminds you that "you cannot prevent where you are coming from, but you can control where you are going."

In this inspiring rags-to-riches memoir, UFC star Jorge “Gamebred” Masvidal reveals how he went from a poor son of immigrants on the streets of Florida to one of the most successful athletes in the world, and how you can use the same principles to achieve success in your life. When an older bully pushed the smaller Jorge Masvidal to the ground in second grade and tried to steal his bike, something snapped inside him. A “skinny kid with a big head,” Jorge grew up in a tough Miami neighborhood, raised by a single mom while his Cuban refugee father was in and out of jail. Jorge reacted in the only way he knew how: a flurry of punches and kicks fueled by red-hot rage that sent the bully to the ground. Over the years, Jorge “Gamebred” Masvidal channeled rage into discipline and used his fists to go from feared street scrapper to one of the world’s greatest professional fighters. But his influence isn’t limited to the cage. Jorge channels his discipline and work ethic in every endeavor, getting involved in politics, social causes, and business. Now, in Born to Fight, Jorge brings his inspiring story to life and proves that every person has the capacity to reach their full potential and achieve the American Dream.

Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump are two of a kind, despite terms in office separated by more than a century. Both encountered a biased press and deeply divisive political environments after being elected with less than 50 percent of the popular vote. Each was viewed as an ill-equipped outlier and accompanied to office by first ladies ostracized by Washington's elite. Lincoln was known by those closest to him for his supreme self-confidence, inexhaustible ambition, mean streak, braggadocio, arrogance, vanity, and knack for thriving amid conflict. The same can be said for Trump, who can be better understood through the many parallels linking him to Lincoln. Born to Fight is the calm in the storm (or the fan for the flame). It dares bring together two apparent polar opposites, drag them through the harsh acumen of history and public perception, and lay them open to reveal two political icons amazingly alike. Evident on hundreds of levels, including the turbulent times they governed, Lincoln and our 45th President are revealed with such startling resemblance and clarity to spark renewed or even novel appreciation for these deceptively kindred American originals.

In his first work of nonfiction, bestselling novelist James Webb tells the epic story of the Scots-Irish, a people whose lives and worldview were dictated by resistance, conflict, and struggle, and who, in turn, profoundly influenced the social, political, and cultural landscape of America from its beginnings through the present day. More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England’s Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the eighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only long experience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters. Their cultural identity reflected acute individualism, dislike of aristocracy and a military tradition, and, over time, the Scots-Irish defined the attitudes and values of the military, of working class America, and even of the peculiarly populist form of American democracy itself. Born Fighting is the first book to chronicle the full journey of this remarkable cultural group, and the profound, but unrecognized, role it has played in the shaping of America. Written with the storytelling verve that has earned his works such acclaim as “captivating . . . unforgettable” (the Wall Street Journal on Lost Soliders), Scots-Irishman James Webb, Vietnam combat veteran and former Naval Secretary, traces the history of his people, beginning nearly two thousand years ago at Hadrian’s Wall, when the nation of Scotland was formed north of the Wall through armed conflict in contrast to England’s formation to the south through commerce and trade. Webb recounts the Scots’ odyssey—their clashes with the English in Scotland and then in Ulster, their retreat from one war-ravaged land to another. Through engrossing chronicles of the challenges the Scots-Irish faced, Webb vividly portrays how they developed the qualities that helped settle the American frontier and define the American character. Born Fighting shows that the Scots-Irish were 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army; they included the pioneers Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; they were the writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain; and they have given America numerous great military leaders, including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Audie Murphy, and George S. Patton, as well as most of the soldiers of the Confederacy (only 5 percent of whom owned slaves, and who fought against what they viewed as an invading army). It illustrates how the Scots-Irish redefined American politics, creating the populist movement and giving the country a dozen presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. And it explores how the Scots-Irish culture of isolation, hard luck, stubbornness, and mistrust of the nation’s elite formed and still dominates blue-collar America, the military services, the Bible Belt, and country music. Both a distinguished work of cultural history and a human drama that speaks straight to the heart of contemporary America, Born Fighting reintroduces America to its most powerful, patriotic, and individualistic cultural group—one too often ignored or taken for granted.