The Devil and Sonny Liston

This is a rare kind of biography. Its subject is not sympathetic, but was a towering figure in sport and culture. Normally (in my experience), the formula for a biography like that will be: (a) making the subject sympathetic, while ostentatiously distancing yourself as the author from that sympathy; and (or, by) (b) making an iconoclast out of the subject, that is, suggesting his or her problem is that he or she was or is too contrary to established mores to have been properly understood, through no fault of their own. Tosches does neither of those things, but neither does he shy away from the fact Liston could have turned out a lot different if he'd had a chance to be a better man or hadn't fallen in with bad people. The research is thorough and the story well told.