I've often thought that Shadow Box is the best of my works because it gave me a chance to enter a very strange but likeable and interesting fraternity—that of the boxing world." —George Plimpton   George Plimpton, at his best, takes on champion boxer Archie Moore, to his own peril   Stepping into the ring against light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore, George Plimpton pauses to wonder what ever induced him to become a participatory journalist. Bloodied but unbowed, he holds his own in the bout—and shares his experiences in this timeless book on boxing and its devotees, among them Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer. Shadow Box is one of Plimpton's most engaging studies of a 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 like to be a boxer, an artist of mayhem, and he does so in the finest sports writing of his career. George Plimpton (1927--2003) was the best-selling author and editor of nearly thirty books, as well as the cofounder, publisher, and editor of the Paris Review. He wrote regularly for such magazines as Sports Illustrated and Esquire, and he appeared numerous times in films and on television.