Stepping into the ring against light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore, George Plimpton pauses to wonder what ever induced him to became a participatory journalist. Bloodied but unbowed, he holds his own in the bout - and brings back this timeless book on boxing and its devotees, among them Ali, Joe Frazier, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer. SHADOW BOX is one of Plimpton's most engaging studies of professional sport, through the eyes of an inquisitive and astute amateur. From the gym, the locker room, ringside, and even in the harsh glare of the ring itself, Plimpton documents what it is to be a boxer, an artist of mayhem, in the finest sports writing of his career.