Archive for Items Categorized 'Biography/ Autobiography', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

Trailblazer in Flight, Britain’s First Female Jet Airline Captain

by Yvonne Pope Sintes

“Airworthiness” of a different kind is the topic here: can—should—a woman be at the helm of a commercial airliner? You’ll shudder at some of the reactions in her time (1950s), and then you’ll shudder some more because glass ceilings are still very real today.

Adventures in Ferrari Land

by Edwin K. Niles

Was there really a time when used Ferraris were (relatively) cheap enough that even young people could afford them, use them as daily drivers, even race them without qualms? Yes! And Niles was the enabler—thanks to him so many Ferraris found their way to SoCal that they were easier to find there than in Italy.

MAX: The Dutch Master

by Andre Hoogeboom

Verstappen won the 2021 F1 World Championship and right away a book comes out. Coincidence? Yes, because it was started six years ago, a mere year after he had become the youngest driver to compete in F1.

Ken Miles (Two books about_]

-by Dave Friedman
-by Art Evans

If you watched the very engaging 2019 movie Ford v Ferrari you would have formed an opinion about Ken Miles. Probably not a great one and certainly not a balanced one. These two books paint a fuller picture by bringing many more voices to the table.

Colin Chapman: Inside the Innovator (republished)

by Karl Ludvigsen

When this important 2010 book went out of print, it left a hole. Thank goodness it’s back, in exactly the same form. History has had no reason to fundamentally change its views of the mercurial Lotus founder in the interim so the recollections and analysis gathered here remain valid.

Spellbinder, The Life of James J. Nance

by Stuart R. Blond

If the name of James Nance brings to mind “Studebaker Packard,” it’s not usually in a friendly way. He had the misfortune of presiding over the ambitious automaker’s final years—and is often enough blamed for them. There’s never been a book written about his working and personal life until now so be prepared to reevaluate that assessment.

Mr. Le Mans: Tom Kristensen

by Tom Kristensen with Dan Philipsen

Sebring has a Kristensen corner, Le Mans has had him on the podium more times than anyone else. Many are the feathers in his cap. But is he a nice guy? Why, yes—meet him here.

Al Unser Jr.—A Checkered Past

as told to Jade Gurss

“There and back again” could be the theme of this story. It is not about image-burnishing but unblinking candor about the highest highs and the lowest lows, and that racing, even successfully, is not everything.

Mike Spence: Out of the Shadows

by Richard Jenkins

He was a man on the move both on the track and in his career but overshadowed by others in both. At his very peak, with a win in reach, he suffered a fatal crash during practice. At long last here is a proper biography to give Spence his due recognition.

Sam’s Scrapbook: My Motorsports Memories

by Sam Posey with John Posey

“Pictures no one has seen and stories no one has heard” says the press release, and it’s mostly true. Pro racer for 17 seasons, broadcaster, raconteur, painter Sam “the Mouth” Posey holds forth once more. He’s 77 and still tearing around his property on his Hammerhead dune buggy. Expect to be entertained.

A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century

by Witold Rybczynski

Olmsted was already dead by the time transportation systems became the arteries of modern life but a not entirely unrelated topic, conservation, which is certainly a pressing issue today, found in him an early advocate and activist. You’ve trod in his footsteps and may not even have known it.

Driven: The Men Who Made Formula One

by Kevin Eason

A colorful look by a long-time observer at the forces that turned a sport into a circus in which staggering amounts of money are to be made by those few who already have money—or genius or luck or connections—to even get a seat at the table.

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