The lucky guys and gals at New Holland Publishers distribute the Taschen imprint in New Zealand, and they’ve sent us details of a heavyweight new release: GOAT - Greatest Of All Time.

To describe this book as a biography of Muhammad Ali would not do it justice. For starters, you need to have a spare NZ$6,500 before you can give it pride of place on your coffee table. And unlike Mr Ali, this book will not float like a butterfly: it tips the scales at 34kg and is 50 cm x 50 cm in size.

Some other knockout facts:

• GOAT is bound by the official bindery for the Vatican - in pink leather, the colour of Ali’s first Cadillac. This bindery specialises in the most elaborate and oversized editions of the Bible.

• The project took Taschen four years to create and reportedly cost ten million Euros (NZ$19.4m).

• GOAT includes over 3,000 photographs of Ali’s life, writings and drawings, and reproductions of fight posters and classic memorabilia.

• It features new work commissioned from US artist Jeff Koons.
  

• Each copy comes in a silk-covered box (see pic) illustrated with Neil Leifer’s iconic 1966 photo, Ali vs Williams.

• The print run is limited to 10,000 individually numbered copies, each one personally signed by Muhammad Ali and Jeff Koons.

• The 792 pages include two gatefold sequences measuring 200 cm x 50 cm. Nine chapters are prefaced by gold-metallic double-page spreads printed in silkscreen.

If you can pick yourself up off the canvas after reading all that, you can find more information on the GOAT web site.