to the national book festival. [applause] thank you and welcome, and certainly on a day like this, i know that the executive editor of the washington post has a million and one things he could be doing, so i m touched he took time to come out here and introduce me. somebody just asked me a few minutes ago if i grew up fighting in a gym boxing. i ve been trying to tell ladies from the second grade on that i consider myself much more of a lover than a fighter. [laughter] but there was one experience i had in the boxing ring in my hometown in columbus, ohio. i was in the 6th grade, and somebody talked me into stepping into the boxing ring. i might make the team if i were fast enough in the ring. the other person hit me very hard and i went down and the pain went in one ear down my back, down the back of my legs, over to the other side of my body, and i m still feeling that pain today, so no, i never became a boxer, but i had a lot of admiration for somebody who had a life as
consider myself much more of a lover than a fighter. [laughter] but there was one experience i had in the boxing ring in my hometown in columbus, ohio. i was in the 6th grade, and somebody talked me into stepping into the boxing ring. i might make the team if i were fast enough in the ring. the other person hit me very hard and i went down and the pain went in one ear down my back, down the back of my legs, over to the other side of my body, and i m still feeling that pain today, so no, i never became a boxer, but i had a lot of admiration for somebody who had a life as fascinating outside of the ring as they did inside the ring, and while this book is a book about a fighter, sugar ray robinson, it is much more. it s what i like to think, it s about the sweet fly paper of life. sugar ray robinson had three dear friends in harlem, lank stone hughs and miles davis, and a lot of the book is about the wonderful cultural swirl that sugar ray robinson made happen. a lot of the nigh