Davis Miller

Davis Miller is an American author, notable for a series of critically acclaimed, bestselling works combining reportage and autobiography. His most recent book is Approaching Ali: A Reclamation in Three Acts, which was published on 1 March 2016 by W. W. Norton, Ltd. His previous books include The Tao of Muhammad Ali and The Tao of Bruce Lee, both of which have been bestsellers in the United Kingdom and Japan. His story "My Dinner with Ali," was judged one of the twenty best magazine stories of the 20th Century.

Miller's story 'My Dinner with Ali', which is the first chapter in his new book Approaching Ali, has been developed into an opera for the Washington National Opera by composer D. J. Sparr. Along with Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Mark Campbell, Davis Miller wrote the libretto for the opera, which received its world premiere in June 2013 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The title of the opera is 'Approaching Ali', the same title as Miller's 2016 book.

Miller's stories have been anthologized in The Beholder's Eye: America's Finest Personal Journalism (Grove/Atlantic, 2005), The Best American Sports Writing of the Century (Houghton Mifflin, 1999), The Muhammad Ali Reader (Ecco Books, 1998), and The Best American Sports Writing 1994 (Houghton Mifflin, 1993), among others.

Miller's first book, The Tao of Muhammad Ali: a fathers and sons memoir, was published in hardcover in December 1996 by Warner Books. The Tao of Muhammad Ali was published in the United Kingdom in February 1997 by Vintage; it reached number one on several English bestseller lists, including those of the Independent (nine weeks) and of the Observer (seven weeks), as well as bestseller lists in both Ireland and Scotland. Miller wrote a radio play of The Tao of Muhammad Ali, which was broadcast in six parts in January 1998 by BBC Radio 4. The Tao of Muhammad Ali was also a bestseller in Japan (Aoyama Publishing). It was judged the Best Nonfiction Book of 1997 by book reviewers at several of Japan's largest newspapers, including Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, among others. In Italy, it won the thirty-sixth annual Premio Bancarella prize for best sports book published in 1999.

Miller's second literary memoir, The Tao of Bruce Lee: a martial arts memoir, about growing up in western North Carolina, about the author's martial arts experiences, and about the ways he has been influenced by Bruce Lee, was published in August 2000 in hardcover by Crown Publishing. Excerpts from The Tao of Bruce Lee were published in Men's Journal (8,000 words), Washington Post Magazine (3,000 words), Esquire (5,000 words),(London) Independent on Sunday Review (4,000-word cover story), Arena (5,000 words), Panorama magazine (Australia), M Quarterly (Japan), and Melbourne (Australia) Age, among others. The Tao of Bruce Lee was published by Vintage in the United Kingdom; it rose to number three on the Independent's bestseller list (four weeks). The Tao of Bruce Lee was judged one of the best ten sports books of 2000 by the editors of Booklist magazine.

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