Racy brothers biography books

Someone once said words to the effect of "Show me someone with heroes, and I'll show you someone in the third grade." That's a bit harsh, but there's more than a kernel of truth to the statement.

For the last thirty years or so (since pugilistic dementia/Parkinson's had him in its grip), Muhammad Ali's handlers have been speaking for him. Randy Roberts and his co-author take us back to a time when Ali could speak for himself, and, more importantly, act for himself.

Ali, like any other man saddled with the label of "greatness" didn't always act like a great or even a good guy.

The book does a good job of chronicling the two separate lives of men born Cassius Clay and Malcolm Little, respectively.

The work charts, in strong journalistic fashion, the rise of one man through the ranks of the heavyweight boxing circuit, and the course of another man through the echelons of the Nation of Islam.