A Fighter's Heart

Author Sam Sheridan has taken an unusual path through life. After high school he joined the merchant marine. Then he hit Harvard. He took that Ivy League education to Thailand to train on the muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) circuit.
Sheridan's journalistic work has appeared in Newsweek, Men's Health and elsewhere, but various martial arts have been the true focus of his life. In this book we get to tag along as he tries his hands at boxing, muay Thai, mixed martial arts (like the Ultimate Fighting Championship on TV), jiu jitsu and more.
It would be easy for a book like this to quickly fall into a macho rut. Sheridan stays out of the one-upsmanship territory, though, by focusing largely on the psychological aspects; what makes people do these things. The book shares some thematic ground with Joyce Carol Oates' classic "On Boxing," but is a much easier and engaging read.