Interested in automotive related ebooks

[s1mp13m4n]

Hello everyone. I am wondering if there are ebooks out there related to cars, racing, or have them as part of an overall theme or sub theme of a book. I am looking for fiction mainly but non-fiction is fine. I am interested in a good story, not a car repair manual. I am not really sure what it is that I am looking for, but just have to start looking and asking questions....right?

[ATDrake]

There's a couple related to NASCAR and stock-car racing. Another poster asked about them over in the Deals forum (a couple had been offered freebie, which that poster had missed), and the thread is here, if you'd like to take a look.

There are also two murder mysteries by a couple named Jim and Joyce Lavene (not NASCAR, but regular non-branded car racing and truck rally stuff such), which were okay. Nothing particularly grabbing, but decently written and might be of more interest to people more genuinely interested in the sport instead of going through a themed reading phase like I was. I read them in paperback from the library, but they're available in Kindle editions.

There's also standard non-fiction stuff like The Physics of NASCAR, an entire Harlequin romance line devoted to NASCAR, a Janet Evanovich series whose main sleuth Alexandra Barnaby acts a spotter for her race-car driving boyfriend and has other involvement with the sport (have not read, am waiting for the holds from the library).

And I rather liked a non-fiction book from the library which I got, Driving with the Devil, which was apparently about the portions of the beginnings of stock car racing that kind of got lost in all the NASCAR image-making and quite interesting. But be warned, that one had some very distractingly bad typos in the ePub edition, though they might have fixed it by now. See if you can find a library copy first.

[s1mp13m4n]

Thank you for the help. There was a "gear head" car movie called American Graffiti which was a classic car guy movie, I am looking for car books like that movie. How about a fiction book about drag racing or a familys love with a junk car that they fix up and such. I am not really sure what I am looking for but am looking for something car centered that is not totally based on facts or a biography. Think "Two Lane Blacktop" (movie) but in a book.

[Metal Mick]

Hi,

The Way to Dusty Death by Alistair MacLean is one of the few around, with F1 forming the background to the plot, but it is rather dated now.

If you like the macabre, then there is Christine by Stephen King.

Cheers,

[CrayWolf]

I would like to recommend:

The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History

It's non-fiction, but it's an interesting look at the history of the Yugo, which may be the most-maligned car brand ever sold in the U.S.

Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR’s Car Talk declared it “the worst car of the millennium.” And for most Americans that’s where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand “good” communists, a willing U.S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and you’ve got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History.

Brilliantly re-creating the amazing confluence of events that produced the Yugo, Yugoslav expert Jason Vuic uproariously tells the story of the car that became an international joke: The American CEO who happens upon a Yugo right when his company needs to find a new import or go under. A State Department eager to aid Yugoslavia’s nonaligned communist government. Zastava Automobiles, which overhauls its factory to produce an American-ready Yugo in six months. And a hole left by Detroit in the cheap subcompact market that creates a race to the bottom that leaves the Yugo . . . at the bottom.

I've met the author -- in fact, if anyone saw this book promoted on Fox and Friends NY one Saturday morning, it was my Yugo they used for the segment -- and it was fascinating talking to him about the history of this car. His engaging nature and enthusiasm for the story really comes across in the book.

[sakura-panda]

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is mainly a dog book, but there is car racing in it too. (Hence the title, which I didn't realize when I started to read the book.) Maybe not as much about racing as you are looking for, but a lot more than I ever knew about before I read it.

[s1mp13m4n]

I remember the movie Cristine from 1983, interesting flick, I wonder how the book is? The origonal movie Gone In 60 Seconds (not the remake) was good so I wonder if there is a book on that?

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by CrayWolf

I would like to recommend:

The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History

It's non-fiction, but it's an interesting look at the history of the Yugo, which may be the most-maligned car brand ever sold in the U.S.

That is the type of auto books I like to read too... but not for the price amazon wants for the Kindle edition... Macmillan is bad about that, very annoying.

[Penforhire]

In non-fiction, I enjoyed "The Machine That Changed the World." Here's a Kindle edition link -- http://www.amazon.com/Machine-That-C...4791442&sr=1-1