"New" old books

Speaking of Moss I just picked up a signed copy of his Design and Behaviour of the Racing Car co-authored by Laurence Pomeroy. The bookstore, which will stay nameless for now, had a couple of other interesting books. One was a well-worn book by Barre Lyndon entitled Combat: A Motor Racing History while the other one was a small book about the BRM 16 Cylinder with clear cut-out illustrations. Had the Lyndon book been in better condition I would have jumped on it, or at least purchased it.

I bought the Moss book mentioned on this forum and placed it on my coffee table, which is where it belongs, not a great book but one well worth the price.

Some of my other recent acquisitions, which I’m very happy with, are:

In First Gear – The French Automobile Industry to 1914 by James M. Laux
“Wilkie” by W.E. Wilkinson
Reg Parnell by Graham Gauld
Mercedes in Peace and War – German Automobile Workers, 1903-1945 by Bernard P. Bellon
Roy Salvadori – Racing Driver by Roy Salvadori

I would also recommend you visit the following link: http://store.andrett...de=Collectibles

Well, since I joined this revered forum my book collection considerably increased (this is in relative terms, of course). First I bought 'Design & Behaviour...' and am very pleased with it. Not only because of technical details and cutaways, but e.g. Moss account of Mercedes operation was particularly amusing. BTW, does his deep dislike for BRM (clearly seen in Tragic Interlude chapter and elsewhere) stem only from their lack of interest to get the P15 in as raceworthy condition as possible? Or was it something else as well?

Then I purchased 'Grand Prix!' and 'A-Z of Formula Racing Cars'. Maybe the pattern in last two is too obvious, but I need to cover a lot of ground- from basics! Somewhere along the line I got a Hull 'Alfa Romeo' book as a gift from a friend and am very happy with it because it gives me insight chiefly in pre-war years knowledge of which is even mopre terrible than my knowledge of post war years ('How is that possible?' I hear you ask ;)). But I think Hull in there got confused about '47 and '48 editions of Mille Miglia. IIRC, Biondetti (in 8C 2900) won in '47 from Nuvolari who had ignition failure due to water splash, and Nuvolari DNF in his '48 heroic drive.

Wow, that's 200% increase in my library (previously had only 'All But My Life' and 'Cruel Sport')!

This year I was fortunate to find some side jobs to pay for books I otherwise could not have acquired. From several publications three stand out as books containing a lot of data, exactly the stuff I need most:

· Braunbeck's Sport-Lexikon, Automobilismus, Motorbootwesen, Luftschiffahrt, by Gustav Braunbeck, Uwe Greve, 1994. This wonderful reprint of a 1910 published tome of 965 pages is a treasure cove of historic facts between 1807 and 1909. Although in German, the numerous data in the book can be interpreted by anybody.

· Settant'anni di gare automobilistiche in Italia, by Emanuele Alberto Carli, Italy, 1967. This 706-page tome is all about Italian races between 1895 and 1965. The Italian book contains practically only results with minor explanations. Like the “black books”, this one is indispensable for anybody wanting to do serious research.

· MONTJUÏCH 40 Years of Motor Racing History At The Park Circuit, by Javier del Arco de Izco, Barcelona, 2000. The author goes back as far as 1922 and describes in detail the events between 1933 and 1973 over 600 pages, making this another tome. A bargin for the price.