epic of a life so Ali: A Life is an epic of a biography. Much in its pages will be familiar to those with some knowledge of boxing but even the familiar may be glimpsed from a new perspective in Eig's fluent prose; for pages in succession its narrative reads like a novel — a suspenseful novel with a cast of vivid characters who prevail through decades and who help to define the singular individual who was both a brilliantly innovative, incomparably charismatic heavyweight boxer and a public figure whose iconic significance shifted radically through the decades as in an unlikely fairy tale in which the most despised athlete in American history becomes, by the 21st century, the most beloved athlete in American history." Published works Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (2005) Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season (2007) Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster (2010) The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution (2014) Ali: A Life (2017) Awards 2005 Casey Award for best baseball book of the year, Luckiest Man 2014 Washington Post "Best Books of the Year" for The Birth of the Pill 2015 Society of Midland Authors, non-fiction book of the year, The Birth of the Pill 2017 NAACP Image Awards, finalist, Ali: A Life 2017 William Hill Sports Book of the Year, best sports book, finalist, Ali: A Life 2018 Plutarch Award, best biography, finalist, Ali: A Life 2018 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, Literary Sports Writing, winner for Ali: A Life 2018 The Times Biography of the Year], Sports Book Awards, London, for Ali: A Life 2018 Sports Book of the Year, British Sports Book Awards, for Ali: A Life 2018 New York Times Notable Book, for Ali: A Life References External links Jonathan Eig - official website The St. Valentine's Day Massacre - Excerpt from Get Capone (Chicago Magazine, May 2010) Jonathan Eig on IMDb 1964 births Living people American male journalists Jewish American journalists People from Monsey, New York American sportswriters Medill School of Journalism alumni 21st-century American Jews Sportswriters from New York (state) 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American male writers American male biographers Columbia College Chicago faculty Northwestern University faculty