Book picks similar to
Boy Gets Car by Henry Gregor Felsen


hot-rods
middle-tennessee-state-library
racing
sixties

Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars


Paul Ingrassia - 2012
    From the assembly lines of Henry Ford to the open roads of Route 66, from the lore of Jack Kerouac to the sex appeal of the Hot Rod, America’s history is a vehicular history—an idea brought brilliantly to life in this major work by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Paul Ingrassia. Ingrassia offers a wondrous epic in fifteen automobiles, including the Corvette, the Beetle, and the Chevy Corvair, as well as the personalities and tales behind them: Robert McNamara’s unlikely role in Lee Iacocca’s Mustang, John Z. DeLorean’s Pontiac GTO , Henry Ford’s Model T, as well as Honda’s Accord, the BMW 3 Series, and the Jeep, among others. Through these cars and these characters, Ingrassia shows how the car has expressed the particularly American tension between the lure of freedom and the obligations of utility. He also takes us through the rise of American manufacturing, the suburbanization of the country, the birth of the hippie and the yuppie, the emancipation of women, and many more fateful episodes and eras, including the car’s unintended consequences: trial lawyers, energy crises, and urban sprawl. Narrative history of the highest caliber, Engines of Change is an entirely edifying new way to look at the American story.

Plays With Cars


Doug DeMuro - 2013
    In “Plays With Cars,” the former Porsche manager covers some of his most ridiculous decisions, like buying an old Land Rover sight unseen, taking a Mercedes AMG station wagon to a rural Georgia dragstrip, and roadtripping across the United States in a Lotus Elise without air conditioning. He’s also reviewed his former cars, which range from a Mercedes G-wagen to a Nissan Cube. Most importantly, he wrote this entire description himself in the third person.

The Eighth Circle


Stanley Ellin - 1958
    When he's asked to act for a young policeman accused of bribery, because he knows something about police corruption in New York City, he isn't too keen. He just can't see the profit - until he meets the man's fiancee. And then Kirk's motives become uncomfortably confused, and he finds himself descending swiftly into a grey world of bookmakers, gangsters, grafters and corrupt politicians, a world where setting up an honest cop is all in a day's work...

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension


Earl Mac Rauch - 1984
    A strange, elusive figure, his name whispered in barrooms and boardrooms, his advice sought by pashas and presidents, his exploits recounted in movies, novels, and comic books that seem somehow more real than life itself. Buckaroo Banzai. First and foremost an extraordinary brain surgeon. In his spare time designer and driver of the electrifying Jet Car, a speed machine faster than sound! Buckaroo Banzai. A happy man whose life has been marked by great tragedy, who speaks a dozen languages and writes songs in all of them. His musical sidekicks the Hong Kong Cavaliersó Rawhide, Reno, the Swede, Perfect Tommy, Flyboy, Big Norse, Pecosóare one of the toughest, most popular hard-rocking bar bands in east Texas. Join Team Banzai on their two-fisted, action-packed assault against the evil red Lectroids from Planet 10! Experience the horrors of the Shock Tower and the Pitt deep within the walls of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems as Buckaroo Banzai fights against impossible odds to rescue Penny Priddy from the clutches of Dr. Emilio Lizardo, the diabolically alien dictator. Pray that Buckaroo will succeed, knowing only too well that if he fails the Earth itself will be blown to dust! For the first time in nearly twenty years, Pocket Books is proud to present The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. This special edition features a new introduction by the author and a color insert featuring photos and illustration seen here for the very first time! No matter where you go, there you are.

Conan of Aquilonia


L. Sprague de Camp - 1977
    Mighty Conan in a fight to the death against the most dangerous fiends of the Hyborian age!Hunting the swift stag and the tusked boar in the gloomy forests of the Gunderland Marches, Conan loses his son Conn to Thoth-Amon and the supremely evil wizards of the Black Ring--and is drawn into a deadly pursuit to the very ends of the death, and a battle to the deepest levels of his endurance.