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Sonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch - Rob Steen
by Jake Speed
Sonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch was written by Rob Steen and published in 2008. Charles 'Sonny' Liston was, for a brief time, the most feared man in boxing and the world heavyweight champion in the early sixties. Liston was considered unstoppable, a big hulking ex-convict with shoulders that could probably hold up a ... bridge and a baleful stare that terrified opponents before the bell even rang. When he demolished liberal establishment darling Floyd Patterson to become champion, Liston soon realised he was never going to be loved or accepted by anyone, neither black or (especially) white. Liston then lost twice to a brash young boxer by the name of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali (two fights that remain controversial to this day because of the endings and Liston's mob connected owners) and gradually faded away from the limelight. He was found dead in 1971, apparently the victim of a drug overdose although his widow maintained he had a phobia of needles. Liston has become something of a cult figure in the decades after his death and there have been several books written about him. Mike Tyson (who was frequently compared to Liston both in the ring and out of it) was famous for visiting Liston's grave with flowers and watching videos of him working out to 'Night Train' (a jazz song written by Jimmy Forrest that Liston loved). Was Liston murdered? Did he throw his fights with Ali on mob orders? I have no idea and, ultimately, neither does Rob Steen.
One of the problems with this book is that it doesn't have much new to add to the Sonny Liston story apart from a few interviews with people who knew him or fought him, these interviews supplying a few quotes and bits and pieces that haven't appeared before. It also feels very prosaic and ordinary compared to Night Train, a mammoth and very well written (even over written) Liston biography by Nick Tosches. Tosches didn't really know the answers to the Liston story either (although he liked to pretend he did) but his book was considerably more entertaining and inventive than this one. Another slight problem here is that the author states quite clearly early on that he doesn't like boxing at all. You don't have to like or be interested in boxing I suppose to write a biography of Sonny Liston but it would help! Consequently, the author is very perfunctory and somewhat out of his depth when he has to describe Liston's fights in the ring and write about boxing in general. It's little wonder that he skims through the boxing parts of Liston's life with some haste at times. As this book is most likely to end up in the hands of people interested in boxing it's a drawback that the author isn't much interested or knowledgeable about Liston's profession.
Steen spends much more of his time on the relationship between Liston and his shadowy mob connected owners and managers and Ali's own affiliation with the Black Muslims. While this material is often interesting, it has also been done to death already. Anyone who has read David Remnick's King of the World (and I'd imagine most people interested in boxing have) have already had a vastly superior account of all of this. Ali: His Life and Times by Thomas Hauser, another book that boxing fans will likely already own, also trawls through this stuff in more exhaustive (and more entertaining with the 'talking heads' structure) fashion. I would definitely have liked just a bit more on Liston the person and his day to day life with his wife. By all accounts Liston was an interesting character in person despite his surly image. He was not Ali when it came to talking but could be witty at times. To be fair to the author, one thing he does manage to uncover is that Liston insisted that the venue showing his first closed circuit fight with Clay/Ali should not be segregated, as was common practice at the time. It shows that Liston was more interested in civil rights than people gave him credit for.
Another notable thing about the book in the sea of already familiar material is that the author manages to get some thoughts from Marty Marshall, the first man to ever beat Liston, a defeat though that was subsequently revenged. These comments are certainly interesting as Marshall recalls how heavy handed Liston was and how he was hit like no person should ever be hit. I think one of the problems with Liston books is that people can't resist writing them because he was such a compelling and enigmatic character with many rumours and whispers surrounding him, with even his death a puzzle that has never been solved. The problem is that none of the books ever come up with the answers that the reader has picked them up hoping to find so they always leave you feeling somewhat unsatisfied. A case in point is the 'phantom' punch of the book's title. This is the punch that Ali hit Liston with in their second bout, Liston going down and being counted out despite the fact that the punch didn't seem to be an especially powerful one.
Many believe he took a dive but the sharp, slashing punch was, others believed, one Liston didn't see coming, increasing its effect. There are witnesses who said Liston asked for smelling salts after the fight and, by all accounts, this is not something you do if you don't have to because it isn't very pleasant. The Sonny Liston story inevitably leads you down a path that only leads to more questions and this book doesn't shed any further on the subject, merely covering ground already trapzed over by previous writers.
So while Sonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch is perfectly readable you probably don't need to buy it if you already have Night Train or King of the World. If you don't have either of those books you should definitely buy them before you even think about taking a peek at this one. At 256 pages this is a decent sized read but ultimately nothing special.
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What You See Is What You Get - Alan Sugar
by julwhite
This review is of the hardback book "What You See is What You Get", the auto-biography of the successful businessman, and now television star, Alan Sugar, now Lord Sugar.
Alan Sugar is probably best known today for his role on the BBC's Apprentice, a show which uses his business experience to judge the ability of ... younger candidates to become his new "apprentice". The experience Sugar has had is wide, he started with nothing, built up Amstrad into an international computer brand, took over the chairmanship of Tottenham Hotspur as well as having a family and maintaining other business assets.
The book details these achievements, with much time spent on how things went wrong at Tottenham Hotspur with some of the fans and the media, as well as his involvement in the building up and growth of Amstrad. I didn't find the book to be too "I was right", which can be irritating when it happens, but it was interesting to read his side of the story, especially with regards to his time at Tottenham, possibly one of the times he suffered most in business because of the negative reactions he was receiving.
Despite these interesting sections, it was the section on his childhood which I found to be the most entertaining and deep, as this appeared to be the most heart-felt in the entire book. There is the mention of the little businesses which he operated to makes a few pounds, which produce several fun anecdotes, but it is the relationship with his parents, and the relationship with friends given his family's lack of money, which I found made the most interesting reading. His childhood certainly seemed to define him in many ways as an individual, and the way that he began on the path to success.
The book is written in quite a witty style, with an element of humour that we've seen in the man on the Apprentice, although I found that there were times when the book slipped slightly into narrative, and was a little narrow in just detailing what happened, rather than the emotions and wider impact that this events caused. However, this is minor, I found the book to flow and to hold the reader's interest throughout, despite the length of the book, nearly 650 pages long.
I'd suggest that this book would interest the general reader, not just those who are interested in business biographies, although it would of course likely hold their interest as well. For anyone interested in setting up a business, or just in need of motivation, it is definitely a book which shows what is possible through application, a bit of luck and lots of hard work. There are a fair few hints and tips on how to run a business throughout the book as well, which are useful without coming across as contrived.
I did get from the library earlier this year a book by Charlie Burden, which was a biography of Sir Alan Sugar (as he was then). This I found to be a badly written book, padded out, irrelevant in places and not really a proper biography in the way that I'd have expected. So this auto-biography is a much better book, and does rather negate the need to read Burden's book in my opinion.
The book retails for 20 pounds, a relatively usual price for hardbacks of this size, and the book is long. However, at the time of writing, the book can be purchased new from Amazon for just 9.98 pounds including postage. Currently, the book is a little cheaper second hand on sites such as eBay and Amazon, but will no doubt become cheaper as time goes on. The book was published this year, 2010, by Macmillan, and the ISBN is 9780230749337. I haven't seen the Kindle edition which is available to read, but this costs eight pounds, seemingly quite expensive given the cost of the book itself.
I'd definitely recommend reading this book, and given the price is under ten pounds at Amazon, it doesn't even seem worth waiting for the paperback version, which won't be much cheaper. The book is an interesting look at Lord Sugar's business life, sometimes maybe a little bit too much of a narrative of what had happened, but overall a fascinating read and definitely recommended.
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The Imam's Daughter - Hannah Shah
by thehonesttruth
The subject of arranged marriage is something that has fascinated me for a while, as regular readers of my review will know - I've reviewed books dealing with arranged marriages in the very western Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints faith, and recently, I began to read books about Muslim arranged marriages .
Reading books ... centred on the Muslim faith raised another issue - that of 'Honour' . To certain people within the Muslim faith, Honour is everything. It colours the way your community see you and the business connections you can make, and any bad behaviour on your part can lose you the respect of your community . For women, the guidelines of honour can be particularly harsh. Particularly if you happen to be the daughter of the Imam , the leader of the local mosque, and a highly respected leader of the community . It is one such young Muslim woman, Hannah Shah, who tells her story here .
The book begins interestingly with a childhood game many are probably familiar with - having your father chase you up the stairs to bed, pretending to be a monster - but what happens when your father really is a monster ? Hannah grew up in a town in the north of England, in an estate largely populated with Muslims, and very few white people . She lived with her parents, and numerous brothers and sisters, but far from a normal happy childhood, she lived under very strict rules, as her father, the Imam, was determined to preserve his family honour at all costs .
For Hannah, this meant never being allowed to listen to music, being expected to attend Quran lessons, and to learn , by rote, the Quran in Arabic, a language she didn't understand. The Quran in Arabic is believed to be the purest form of the text, and she strived hard to get it right to win the approval of her father. However, her father never did approve - he was a violent bully, who expected his wife, and his daughters,to cater to his every need . If his dinner was served cold, he would throw it to the floor and beat his wife black and blue - or he did, until at six years old, Hannah stepped in front of her .
From then on, Hannah was his victim , becoming the targets for his beatings, and then, with alarming frequency, being taken down into the basement, sexually abused, and left there . All this time, her mother looked on in silence, just glad not to be the target of the beatings anymore. Hannah bore this patiently for many years, with her only attempt to seek help resulting in disaster. Her school, in an attempt to help Hannah out with her home situation, called in a Muslim social worker - a social worker who, in fact, was a member of her local community - and held her father in high regard .
Overhearing her parents making plans for an arranged marriage , Hannah panics, confiding in a teacher once again - but can she escape her fate ?
I found this book incredibly interesting, as it taught me a lot about growing up a Muslim that I didn't know . I didn't know for example, that despite their first language being English, many British Muslims are expected to learn, by heart, the Quran . Not only that, but they are expected to learn in in Arabic, a language they don't understand, and that it is in fact rarely explained to them what the words they are learning actually mean , leaving the Quran open to misintepretation by relgious elders, with Quran students often unaware of inaccuracies .
As an example , when Hannah dares to mention to her father that Jesus is a prophet named in the Quran (Isa) , her father denies the truth of this , beating her and warning her never to mention his name in his hearing again . In fact, Jesus / Isa is a very prominent figure in the Quran , seen as a precursor to Muhammed, and in fact fortold the latters coming . Isa is mentioned in the Quran by name 25 times, while Muhammed is mentioned only 4 times .
This is just one example of the way the Quran was misused, by this particular Imam, to ensure his family, and indeed his community, behaved and toed the line .
Another thing I found quite shocking was the way Hannahs mother stood by, and allowed her daughter to be raped and beaten for so many years. However, after reading the book, I spent a long time thinking about what she could have done about it - living within such a tight Muslim community, where people didn't even phone the police when there was a crime, but went to the local Muslim police officer, there would have been very few people she could safely have spoken to, and going outside of the community would not have been an option for her, as she didn't speak English . In fact, speaking out in defence of her daughter would only have gotten her into more trouble. A commonly held Muslim view is that a woman is the guardian of her husbands home, his children, and his honour - and this gaurdian role would mean not mentioning him, his character, or his deeds to any third person in a derogatory or defaming manner - ever.
The books tone is very matter of fact for most of the text, although there were a few passages where Hannah describes how she would escape in her mind to a lavender field with her 'peace birds' that were a little too poetic and flowery in contrast to the rest of the text. One thing I found very surprising was her determination to be 'fair' to her family - in parts, she almost seems to be not making excuses exactly, but providing reasons why her brothers in particular may have behaved the way they did. This made me a little uncomfortable, but was only in the earlier sections of the book . Much later, as she built a new life for herself, a life that involved studying religion in depth and finally reading the Quran in English, she becomes a much stronger character, enriched by her understanding of the Quran (although she no longer follows the Muslim faith) and able to understand the many inaccuracies that she, and many other Muslim girls in her community, were led to believe .
This really is a fascinating book, exposing a side to the Muslim faith that many people never see . The majority of Muslims living in the UK are respectable people who follow their religion while abiding by the legal and moral beliefs upheld here . Likewise, the majority of arranged marriages in the UK are perfectly legal , between two consenting adults who agree to marry .
However, within some small parts of the Muslim society, as with any society, there are problems - with forced (entirely different from arranged) marriages and misguided concepts of honour being just two . This book brings these two subjects out into the open, to the attention of the world at large, and the extra knowledge can only be a good thing . Highly recommended .
Below are a couple of links included for anyone who is affected by, or knows someone affected by, the issue of forced marriage, or honour .
http://tinyurl.com/35tzl7g - Shortened URL for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office department dealing with forced marriages, both at home in the UK and abroad. They have confidential hotlines and caseworkers dedicated just to this issue, and may be able to help if you find yourself in trouble.
www.karmanirvana.org.uk - Karma Nirvana is a registered charity and provides support to all victims of honour based abuse and forced marriage.
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