Iron Mike collects the best writing on the tumultuous fifteen-year career of the most reviled and idolized athlete in the world, Michael Gerard Tyson. Since becoming, at age nineteen, the youngest heavyweight champion in history, Tyson's dramatic rise, fall, and continuing struggle has provoked more passionate writing, both in and out of the sports pages, than that of any other boxer since Muhammad Ali. Iron Mike is about more than boxing. Like no other athlete, Mike Tyson is at the nexus of America's cultural anxieties about race, class, masculinity, violence, and celebrity; like no other athlete his story of high drama and low comedy inspires writers to wrestle with these themes, with Tyson often no more than the occasion for the writer's own preoccupations. And Tyson has provided many such occasions: his rise to the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship at age twenty-one; his rocky marriage to Robin Givens; his controversial conviction for the rape of Desiree Washington; his return to boxing and reclamation of the WBC and WBA belts; his biting of Evander Holyfield. Iron Mike is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a man who, for better and worse, is one of the most recognizable, popular, and defining icons of our time. The book includes selections from Joyce Carol Oates, Pete Hamill, Jose Torres, Pete Dexter, Phil Berger, Christopher Hitchens, Robert Lipsyte, Dave Anderson, Jonathan Yardley, Richard Rodriguez, Katherine Dunn, Budd Schulberg, William Plummer, David Remnick, Keith Botsworth, and others.

Mike Lucas was born in 1906 in a small coal mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania. His father was killed in a coal mining accident when he was seven years old. He lived with his mother and older brother Lukey that worked in the coal breaker for $2.80 a day, and he was the sole support of the family. When Mike was in second grade, he got a job after school at a shirt factory cleaning up. They Struggled for several years, when in 1918 the flu virus hit and killed over 700,000 people in the US. During the flu, Mike was a good Samaritan, helping the sick. He then quit school when he was 12 years old and went to work to help his mother pay the bills. When Mike was 13, he was working down in a mine shaft and the elevator operator took him and his boss up over the top of a 100-foot-high had frame. At the last second Mike leapt off and grabbed onto an upright beam and his boss fell to his death. Years later Mike was working in another mine that flooded with water, and five of his fellow minors drowned, Mike was the only one that survived. Several of the miners hung the rude arrogant mine boss that caused their death. For years after that, the boss's ghost could be seen along the road where he was hung. In the 1930s the Ku Klux Klan was very active, and Mike and his friends ran them out of town. During the depression all of the men were out of work, so they dug their own coal mine. The coal barons claimed they own the land and had their own police force shoot many the miners to run them off of the land. Mike and his brothers were the first ones to stand up to the coal and iron cops. Mike was one of the best boxers in the country and was scheduled for the heavyweight boxing championship of the world. he was known as iron Mike. In 1925 Mike played football for the Pottsville maroons, who won the first National Football League championship. Mike had his own coal mine and struck a vein of coal that was a gold mine. A greedy coal Baron that had several crooked politicians and a judge in bed with him, made a deal with the Department of mines, where they could go and steal Mike's coal. While Mike was working in the mines, he had several brushes with death.

Be sure to check out IRON AMBITION: My Life with Cus D’Amato by Mike Tyson “Raw, powerful and disturbing—a head-spinning take on Mr. Tyson's life.”—Wall Street Journal Philosopher, Broadway headliner, fighter, felon—Mike Tyson has defied stereotypes, expectations, and a lot of conventional wisdom during his three decades in the public eye. Bullied as a boy in the toughest, poorest neighborhood in Brooklyn, Tyson grew up to become one of the most ferocious boxers of all time—and the youngest heavyweight champion ever. But his brilliance in the ring was often compromised by reckless behavior. Yet—even after hitting rock bottom—the man who once admitted being addicted “to everything” fought his way back, achieving triumphant success as an actor and newfound happiness and stability as a father and husband. Brutal, honest, raw, and often hilarious, Undisputed Truth is the singular journey of an inspiring American original.

Who needs eldritch might? Barbarians, fighters, rangers, paladins, and other warriors meet their foes head on, relying on nothing but their cool nerves and skill at arms. They would say a good sword arm is worth a thousand spells.

MIKE REILLY: Finding My Voice illuminates how profoundly IRONMAN touches its participants and its fans. Written from the perspective of a World Championship race announcer and one of the most prominent personalities in triathlon, it provides an intimate and revealing glimpse into a fascinating corner of the world of endurance sports.

Triathletes and multisport fans alike will enjoy this celebration of athletes who push themselves beyond conventional limits of physical performance. With its in-depth look at the endurance philosophy and the powerful lure of the Ironman Triathlon, it's no wonder that ten years after its landmark publication this book remains a multisport standard.

Former lightweight champion and acclaimed biographer Jose Torres has written this first, full-scale portrait of boxing's most explosive, intriguing and dominating champion--Mike Tyson. 16-page photo insert.