It might be an unusual sports book that tells the lives of two sportsmen in completely different sports but this book manages it very well. The famous boxing champion Joe Louis and the legendary athletics star Jesse Owens, were both born in the early part of the 20th century and lived in, if not poverty, then certainly in families struggling for money in a racist America.

The two men eventually became good friends and met up often throughout their lives, at one point even running a race against each other! The book tracks their respective careers, with a highlight being Jesse Owens' 1936 Olympic success in a pre WW2 Nazi Germany, defying Hitler's desire to show the superiority of the Aryan race. (But it is interesting to note that even in Nazi Germany - admittedly after some initial difficulties - Owens was able to stay in the same hotels as white athletes, and they could eat together, whereas in America at the time, so many food places wouldn't even serve black people and he could not stay in 'white' establishments.) Jesse's life after the Olympic success is also chronicled - here is a man who was badly let down by his government but refused to lose his patriotism.

Joe Louis' career meanwhile went on an upward trajectory, and there are literal blow by accounts of many of his most legendary fights, but his later life is also covered without filters.

While the book acknowledges the achievements of the two men, it does not paint them as perfect heroes, and instead acknowledges their human flaws and errors.

I also really enjoyed reading about other athletes whose own lives intertwined with Owens and Louis - for example, a young boxer named Cassius Clay is included.

I would say that you don't have to be particularly interested in athletics or boxing to find something to enjoy here. The most interesting parts for me were the difficulties the two men faced just because of the colour of their skin.

The book is clearly well researched and the author is undoubtedly passionate about his subject - and definitely made me want to find out more about some of the more peripheral characters. ( )

The story of Joe Lewis and Jessie Owens is not only remarkable in what they achieved, but the backdrop against which they achieved it - American racism and the rise of the Nazis. At one point the author points out that there was real and valid debate over who was worse off - a Jew in Germany in 1936 or a black in the Deep South. Some of the accounts the author manages to unearth about lynching, Jim Crow-ism and the entrenched hatred of middle America for the blacks verges on the incredible - was America really like that? Evidently. ( )