epic book thread - GRM Required Reading

After all the bazillions of "Learn me car books..."threads out there, I decided to try to consolidate as many as I can. This topic comes up often enough that I feel like a "one true list" needs to be posted. Maybe this can be stickied?

the series by BS Levy
ANything by Toly Arunutoff
books by Tommy Byrne
Cannonball
The art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein
Chassis Engineering by Herb Adams
The Racing Driver by Denis Jenkinson. He codrove for Moss
The Unfair Advantage by Mark Donohue
Jackie Stewart's "Winning is not enough: The autobiography"
The Man in the White Suit
Alex Zanardi's bio
French Kiss with Death" on the making of "Le Mans" by Michael Keyser
The Speed Merchants
Flat-Out... Flat Broke by Perry McCarthy
Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken... by Murray Walker
Fast Guys, Rich Guys and Idiots--Sam Moses
Sunday Driver--Brock Yates
The Hemi in the Barn
The Gold Plated Porsche
"Driving Like Crazy" by P. J. O'Rourke
Go Like Hell
Anything by Smokey Yunick
Fred Puhn's How to Make Your Car Handle
Keith Tanner's How to Build a Cheap Sportscar
Brock Yates High Performance
The Last Open Road series
Race Car Vehicle Dynamics by Milliken.
Kurt Bilinski's (sp?) Kimini book
Hard Driving, by Brian Donovan
MegaManual for Megasquirt DIY Auto tunes Performance Fuel Injection Systems
How to Tune and Modify Engine Management Systems by Jeff Hartman
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Pirsig
The Driver by Alexander Roy.
Volkswagen Sport Tuning - for Street and Competition by some guy named "Schroeder"
Competition Car Aerodynamics by Simon McBeath
How to build Motorcycle-engined Racing Cars, by Tony Pashley
Racing Safely, Living Dangerously
Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford
Roadster: How (and Especially Why) a Mechanical Novice Built a Sports Car from a Kit by Chris Goodrich
Car Builder's Manual by Lionel Baxter
Build Your Own Sports Car: On a Budget by Chris Gibbs
Lotus Seven & the Independents by Dennis Ortenburger
Your Kit Car Assembly Manual by Gary Brizendine
Performance Roadsters: The Enthusiast's Guide to Cars Inspired By The Classic Lotus 7 by Monty Watkins

This list is far from complete, but after reading through a dozen or 4 threads, this is the good stuff I could scoop off the top of the pile...Please post any of your other favorite car related books here

The Carroll Smith series of books.

Truck by John Jerome.

Proud to say I've read more than half of those.

I'll add a few that might seem odd until you spend an hour reading the Off-Topic forum.

• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan
• The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
• The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins
• 1984, George Orwell
• A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, Howard Zinn
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemmingway (for no other reason than because it is awesome storytelling)

Racing and Sports Car Chassis Design - Costin & Phipps

I just got "The Garner Files" by James Garner as a gift. I haven't read it yet, but it may be one to add to the list.

Peter Egan's "Side Glances" columns from R&T are availible in book form.

For you motorcycle guys, "Ghost Rider" by Neil Peart of the band RUSH is a great read...also hits home if you have lost anyone close to you. I lost my mom in a car accident in 1994...I thoroughly enjoy motorcycles, and am a huge RUSH fan, so this book is at the top of my list.

I just bought this, I hope it is as good as it looks. I'll let you know when I finish it. In like four months...

Well, If we are listing non-car books, my next several reads are going to be (and yes, Im aware Im hopping on the bandwagon) The Hunger Games books and The Girl Who Kicks things series.

I read Water for Elephants recently - Im not much of a love story guy, but the way the ending is foreshadowed in the beginning of the book...well, lets just say my head never exploded from surprise like it did with this...crazy awesome for that point alone.

Others on my list are Crosley (Im a Cincinnatian, so its germane), Hawk Among the Sparrows by Dean Mclaughlin, and Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke

"The Man Who Would Not Die" - The remarkable life of 'Lucky' Herschel McKee Barnstormer, war hero, test pilot, motor racer, scoundrel

Yeager- How could you not like Gen. Chuck?

The End of Detroit - Sad stuff, but absolutely worth reading.

Passion for Manufacturing- Read this one AFTER End of Detroit. I used to work for the author...along with 30,000 others, most of whom have also moved on.

that reminds me:

One Good Run: The Legend of Burt Munro by Tim Hanna , inspiration for the movie The Worlds Fastest Indian

and a book about the making of that movie, The World’s Fastest Indian by Roger Donaldson

4cylndrfury wrote: that reminds me: One Good Run: The Legend of Burt Munro by Tim Hanna , inspiration for the movie *The Worlds Fastest Indian* and a book about the making of that movie, The World’s Fastest Indian by Roger Donaldson

A big +1 on the Burt Munro book. And I'm very flattered - seriously - to have my Kimini book on such a list, and yes, my name is spelled correctly. Thank you very much for the thought of including me.

Your build diaries are epic, and the details in the builds incredible! Kimini and Midlana are probably in my top 5 all time favorite builds...and Im a dog person too, so I was emotionally touched by the MidLana diary...It was my pleasure to include you - Thank you very much for doing what you do!

Tom Heath wrote: Yeager- How could you not like Gen. Chuck?

His follow-up book about retirement in the Sierra Nevada's is also an excellent read. He supposedly lives in the same area as my Mother up there.

I just started reading Bill Vlasic's "Once Upon a Car" about the auto industry collapse. Really interesting stuff so far.

You've got Levy in there twice

My favorites? The shop manuals for my various cars!

Car books:

By Brooks Too Broad for Leaping, by Denise McCluggage.

Chaparral, by Ryan Falconer and Doug Nye.

Non-car: the four main Tolkien books.

Anything by Spider Robinson

Believe it or not, Jimmy Buffett's books are all worth a read. I particularly liked A Pirate Looks at Fifty.

All of Craig Johnson's mystery novels.

In reply to Keith:

a good deal of those were filched from other posts, so its quite possible that there are repeats...

I've read "The Limit", and to be 100% honest, wasn't all that enthralled. Maybe it's just me, but it seemed like it was a biography trying a bit too hard to masquerade as a story. I did quite enjoy "The Unfair Advantage" and "The Art of Racing in the Rain", though, and what parts of Gold Plated Porsche I read before I misplaced the book -______-

another one, not interesting so much from a story perspective as it is from a "this guy did and wrote about what I always wanted to do" perspective, is "The Cobra in the Barn". Granted, that was partially brought on by finding a (probably '69) Plymouth GTX in a small barn-like structure within a mile of my grandparent's farm and an old VW beetle that had become home to a tree

"The Racing Driver"- theory and practice of fast driving" by Denis Jenkinson.

Not necessarily a page-burner, but every gearhead should have access to Race Car Vehicle Dynamics by Milliken.

OT, if you're a self-labled geek, especially if you're an '80s geek, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is one of the most fun books I've read in... urm... ever.

Currently I'm about 1/3rd of the way through Unfair Advantage.

I've recently enjoyed this free online e-book which goes through the build of a hot rod from scratch, on the cheap:

http://www.hotrodders.com/scratch-built/Cover

I see that no one has mentioned the Speed Secrets series, despite Per's involvement with their autocross-specific book.