We?ve previously profiled ­occasional C/D contributor P.J. O?Rourke?s Driving Like Crazy: 30 Years of Vehicular Hellbending, but that doesn?t mean you don?t still need it.
A list of ?bests? is always temporary, but these books will add weight to anyone?s corpus of knowledge for cars, racing, and race drivers. Our list includes recent titles as well as some oldies that deserve reacquaintance. And nobody?s automotive library is complete without Sir Stirling Moss?s All but My Life: Face to Face with Ken Purdy, Purdy?s The Kings of the Road, Denis Jenkinson?s The Racing Driver: The Theory and Practice of Fast Driving, and The Reckoning by the late David Halber­stam on the parallels of the American and Japanese car industries.

Total Competition: Lessons in Strategy from Formula One
Ross Brawn and Adam Parr; Simon & Schuster
A valuable peek behind the veil at the politics of Formula 1 and the sport?s economics over the past 20 years. Includes portraits of Bernie Ecclestone, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, designer Adrian Newey, and the Jaguar, Ferrari, Honda, and Benetton teams where Brawn held sway as technical director and team principal. The account is marred by the tendency of the authors to fall back on simple self-help mantras and overly weighty references to classical texts such as Carl von Clausewitz?s On War and Sun Tzu?s The Art of War. Still, a winner.
Corvette: America?s Star-Spangled Sports Car, the Complete History

Karl Ludvigsen; Bentley Publishers
Th...