A writer for major newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker as well as prominent online publications such as Slate.com, Jonathan Eig made a name for himself in the world of sports by concentrating on baseball. His first book, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, earned him a Casey Award for best baseball book of the year. He also detailed the first season of the legendary player Jackie Robinson in Opening Day. Both of these books landed Eig on the New York Times bestseller list.
Now, Eig has turned his attention to another great American pastime, boxing, and perhaps its most iconic practitioner, Muhammad Ali. His latest release, Ali: A Life, is an in-depth examination of the three-time heavyweight boxing champion who, few would disagree, was more than worthy of his self-proclaimed title “the Greatest.”
While researching this comprehensive 640-page epic, Eig gained access to all the key people in Ali’s professional and personal life, from each of his managers to his three surviving wives. In addition to conducting more than 500 interviews, he uncovered dozens of hours of rarely-heard Ali audiotapes from the 1960s as well as thousands of pages of previously unreleased files from both the FBI and the United States Department of Justice.