Finding myself with alot of downtime lately and counting down days until I go back home.
Looking for a good book to load into the Kindle.
So far a toss up between The Art of Racing in the Rain or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. . .
One of those two or any other reccomends. . .
Those two choices are diametrically opposed, though they both have Art in the title. The Art of Racing in the Rain has very little to do with racing-- it is basically a tear-jerker of a novel written from the view of a dog. It is very well done, but something of a downer.
Zen isn't really about motorcycle maintenance as much as it is is about philosophy. It isn't particularly light reading.
If you're looking for a book about racing, I liked Unfair Advantage about Mark Donohue.
For fiction you might enjoy The Last Open Road by Burt Levy. He did a series of books of which the first two or three are pretty good. After that he mistakenly believed he didn't need an editor and the books get pretty much unreadable.
No idea whether those titles are available on Kindle.
phaze1todd, If you read the book in a week you can return it for a full refund.
Others will differ, but I think this was the best book ever written about wrenching on old junk:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a book on philosophy. It's not an easy read, and if you don't like people who write in endless circles and use way too many words, you'll hate it as much as I did (and not finish it). A much better version of the same thing is Shopcraft as Soulcraft.
Stephen King's Christine I also really enjoyed, if you want fiction that is slightly scary. Who here hasn't thought one of their cars was out to kill them?
I also like Tom Cotter's ...In The Barn series. It's like American Pickers for cars and bikes.
Freedom's Forge. It's a history of American production in World War II and how being able to supply the world's armies helped win the war.
Stephen King's 'Full Dark, No Stars' is GREAT. He's back to his roots. 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is a tough read and hard to appreciate unless you know the backstory. So it's one of the few books where I recommend that you read his afterword before reading the book. 'The Art of Racing in the Rain' is very good as well.
It's not in e-book format yet I guess, but I thought "The Red Leather Driving Gloves" was a good one. It's about club racing in the late 60's in southern California.
Another vote for The Unfair Advantage.
As I recall, "Fast Guys, Rich Guys and Idiots" by Sam Moses was a good read too...as was "Sunday Driver" by Brock Yates.
"Go Like Hell" by A. J. Baime
Ford, Ferrari, and their battle for speed and glory at LeMans.
They might be making it into a movie
I read a good chunk of it on my lunch breaks this week. It's a fascinating story.
For non-racing stuff, I like Clive Cussler. Most anything with Dirk Pitt is a fun read. Yes there is still some car stuff (and plane stuff, and ship stuff...)
I just finished "1984". It made me feel things...
In reply to Maroon92:
Kinda gives you the creeps, don't it?
Your next assignment is: Fahrenheit 451
I cant get enough of Lee Child's Jack Reacher books.
Best book I've read in a long time...
“[...] almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of 'psst' that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer. ”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
“We all have our little solipsistic delusions, ghastly intuitions of utter singularity: that we are the only one in the house who ever fills the ice-cube tray, who unloads the clean dishwasher, who occasionally pees in the shower, whose eyelid twitches on first dates; that only we take casualness terribly seriously; that only we fashion supplication into courtesy; that only we hear the whiny pathos in a dog’s yawn, the timeless sigh in the opening of the hermetically-sealed jar, the splattered laugh in the frying egg, the minor-D lament in the vacuum’s scream; that only we feel the panic at sunset the rookie kindergartner feels at his mother’s retreat. That only we love the only-we. That only we need the only-we. Solipsism binds us together, J.D. knows. That we feel lonely in a crowd; stop not to dwell on what’s brought the crowd into being. That we are, always, faces in a crowd.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
The Millionaire Next Door
Freakonomics
“It is a hundred-year-old witch book, bound in human skin and probably written in ancient cum...YOU lick it!”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby
The BS Levy books are an interesting view into the early days of club racing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Open_Road
David Vizard's book on performance tuning an MG A series engine?
Trans_Maro wrote: In reply to Maroon92: Kinda gives you the creeps, don't it? Your next assignment is: Fahrenheit 451
I've read that one, too. Equally creepy.
Next one is Brave New World...
They were both right.
JamesMcD wrote: They were both right.
Yup, we live in a police/surveillance state AND we're all distracted and drugged down enough not to give a E36 M3.
Yes, it's written by that Bob Lutz. It is an interesting perspective from someone who saw the monster from the inside. I enjoyed it.
Not car related but John Grisham's 'Ford County Stories' was great. His characterizations are as good as Stephen King's IMHO. For that matter, if you've never read 'A Painted House' that's another superb work from him.
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