The Fearless Harry Greb : A biography of a tragic hero of boxing
Bill Paxton
Author Bill Paxton has done a real service with this workman-like biography of Harry Greb, an important boxer also known as The Pittsburg Windmill for his unique two-fisted attacking style. He was an amazing fighter with more than 300 contests as a middleweight to heavyweight during an era when boxing was truly an unruly and dangerous sport.
Greb was the only man ever to beat heavyweight Gene Tunney who considered him the greatest fighter he ever saw, and credited Harry with helping him develop into a world champion. Many of his opponents both admired and feared Greb.
Paxton compares Greb's ring performances with many notable opponents such as the Battling Levinsky, Tiger Flowers, Billy Miske, Bill Brennan, Willie Meehan, Gene Tunney, and Tom Gibbons, as well as those who ducked him like Jack Dempsey.
Greb fought bigger and heavier men than Dempsey, and had no problem beating them with his unique style and incredible courage in the ring.
This aspect of Harry Greb's career is even more amazing when you consider that since his first fight with Kid Norfolk in 1921 Greb received a blow that eventually resulted in a detached retina, meaning that Greb fought the last third of his career as middleweight champion from 1923 to 1926 blind in one eye.
His fights crossed racial lines and weight limits, often his opponents were more than 30 pounds heavier than him.
The book dispels myths about Greb's womanizing, drinking and training regimens, showing a remarkably dedicated man who created many of the rumours about himself in order to change the odds, ascertain his opponent, and create a psychological edge for himself.
He was a devoted husband who lost his beloved wife to illness, served his country in war, and demonstrated a calculating intelligence that resulted in his ultimate goal as an undisputed world champion.
Like Sam Langford, Greb had over 300 recorded professional fights, and over the course of a four-year period from 1917 to 1920 entered the ring a remarkable 134 times, including an even more mind boggling 45 times in 1919 alone. Tragically Greb passed away in 1926 at 32 years of age as a result of a blood clot on the brain the day after an operation to address injuries suffered from an automobile accident.
Harry Greb was one of the most incredible athletes of his time, and collectibles around his career command a high price. Although some of his fights were known to be filmed, to date none have survived beyond training and sparring sessions, and so we have only the evidence of others to rely on, and this wonderful book that makes known the true Harry Greb.
This book is a valuable contribution to boxing history with some 124 photographs, Greg's complete record, body measurements, chapter notes, a bibliography and a fine index to guide the interested reader.
In this day and age of internet "chat and chaff" about Greb, and "wiki-facts" of leaky value, it is a delight to read a well-researched, superbly sourced book containing the real story and actual facts, which is far more interesting than the fiction.
The Fearless Harry Greb : A biography of a tragic hero of boxing by Bill Paxton is available in the non-fiction section of the Prince George Public Library.
-- Reviewed by Allan Wilson,
chief librarian at
the Prince George Public Library.
Griftopia and The Great Gerangement
by Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone magazine has an amazing track record of finding angry young men to cover politics, like Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke. Their latest fire-breathing political pundit is Matt Taibbi, who wields his pen like it really was a sword, eviscerating all comers with equal flair.
Taibbi is best known for an essay he wrote about the huge investment bank Goldman Sachs, where he referred to the Wall Street giant as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
In his latest book, Griftopia, Taibbi blasts both major American political parties for selling out to big business, like Goldman Sachs, letting them bleed the economy dry and then filling their hands with cash to hold the system together because they're "too big to fail." Unlike many writers on the left, Taibbi likes what the Tea Party represents - a grassroots movement of angry Americans on the warpath against incompetent career politicians.
Unfortunately, he points out, the Tea Party has been hijacked, rejecting tax increases of any kind, especially the ones affecting multinational corporations and billionaires, blaming everyone poor and non-white for their problems and holding up buffoons like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann as the kind of leadership America needs.
Wall Street and its slaves in the media, the schools of economics at the prestigious university and now the Tea Party say big business is too complicated for the little people to understand but Taibbi isn't buying it.
Forget about the fancy financial instruments and look at the outcome, he argues, where the super-wealthy's hold on America's political and financial power levers has never been tighter. Recent financial booms have only succeeded in making the rich richer while putting the working poor deeper into debt.
In his previous book, The Great Derangement, Taibbi tackles the social, political, economic and religious delusions that are all working to tear America down.
Rather than face hard truths about climate change, 9/11, the Iraq War, taxes, politicians, government, the economy and their religious beliefs, too many Americans cling to fantasies about the country's greatness and their own self-worth.
Like Thompson and O'Rourke before him, Taibbi's anger comes with a sugar coating of humor. In Griftopia, Sarah Palin is dismissed as looking like "like a chief flight attendant on a flight from Winston-Salem to Cleveland, with only the bag of almonds and the polyester kerchief missing from the picture. With the Junior Anti-Sex League rimless glasses and a half updo with a Bumpit she comes across like she's wearing a cheap Halloween getup John McCain's vice-presidential search party bought in a bag at Walgreens after midnight."
If that tickles your funny bone, check out Matt Taibbi. You can find his columns in Rolling Stone in the magazine section of the library, The Great Derangement is available in the non-fiction section and Griftopia is available as an e-book through the Library To Go's database on the library's website.
-- Reviewed by Neil Godbout, the communications
co-ordinator at the Prince George Public Library
