This is the lost and translated book that came out of a series of pieces Johnson–perhaps the greatest boxer who ever lived–wrote for a French newspaper in 1911. It’s not very long but it is full of really interesting strategies and anecdotes. You get the sense that he was an incredibly intelligent and sensitive man–clearly had a thirst for drama and attention. Who knows what place he would occupy in our culture and history had he not been taken down so thoroughly by racism and genuinely evil people? But despite all that, he was always smiling. As Jack London put it after Johnson’s most famous fight: “No one understands him, this man who smiles. Well, the story of the fight is the story of a smile. If ever a man won by nothing more fatiguing than a smile, Johnson won today.”

My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass (Amazon) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Amazon), two of the most inspiring men of the last 150 years.(also in this vein, My Life and Battles by Jack Johnson (Amazon) and Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington (Amazon).