In a nation that worships the automobile for the freedom, style, and status that it confers, the Indianapolis 500, run on or near Memorial Day eighty-seven times, is an annual rite of passage celebrating Americans’ love affair with speed. Indy recounts the drivers (677 men and 3 women) who have gone to Indianapolis in the past ninety-five years to live their dreams, staking their lives on the outcome. It highlights the faces in the crowd: hardworking Americans, tinhorn celebrities, hookers, movie stars, gate-crashers, and five American presidents. Terry Reed focuses his narrative on the track’s four quarter-mile-long turns, each the site of triumphs (including those of such multiple winners as Billy Vukovich, A. J. Foyt, and Helio Castroneves); grisly deaths (at least sixty-six, including three unrelated men of the same unusual last name who died in the same turn but in different decades); and bizarre heroics (like the sans souci French driver who downed champagne throughout the 1913 Indy 500 and still won). Reed also examines Indy’s confluence of racing and aeronautics (World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker once owned the track) and the impact upon the event of such forces as segregation, gender politics, food, fads, publicity stunts, world-class partying, and tasteless pop culture. Indy takes readers on an entertaining, full-throttle ride through the history of one of the world’s most famous races and one of America’s most hallowed rituals. It is the definitive account of the crown jewel of American motor
- The ultimate insider’s guide to Los Angeles; features interesting and unusual places not found in traditional travel guides
- Part of the international 111 Places/Shops series with over 650 titles and 3.8 million copies in print worldwide
- Appeals to both the local market (nearly 10 million call Los Angeles home) and the tourist market (over 42 million people visit Los Angeles every year)
- Fully illustrated with 111 full-page color photographs
- A revised and updated edition
“In Los Angeles, everyone is a star.” – Denzel Washington
For more than a century, seekers of sun and celebrity from around the world have flocked to this sprawling metropolis on the Pacific, which Dorothy Parker once described as “72 suburbs in search of a city.” But beyond the red-carpet reputation and Tinseltown trappings is a west coast wonderland teeming with unexpected cultural experiences, iconic architecture, gorgeous open spaces, quirky museums, hidden vistas, unconventional art, and obscure stories about the starlets, moguls, personalities, and players who have made Los Angeles their playground. This unusual guidebook explores 111 of the city’s most interesting and unknown places and experiences: wander a serpentine path in a spiritual quest of your own making; channel your inner cowboy at a tried and true honky tonk bar; pay homage to the Dude at the bungalow where the big Lebowski lived; turn your car tires into musical instruments on the country’s only ‘musical’ road; sleep with the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin; view a constellation of stars more vivid than anything Hollywood has to offer. From the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, Angelenos and visitors will fall in love with the real Los Angeles. Adventures beckon. Surprises await. Just imagine how much more scintillating your dinner-party storytelling will be
Available in paperback to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Moonshots presents stunning photos of space and Earth from NASA’s archives—taken by Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, and ISS astronauts using high resolution Hasselblad cameras.
In December 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 captured images depicting Earth hanging like a lonely fruit in the vast darkness of space. The social and spiritual shock of that photograph—and those which followed—never fully diminished, even as Apollo missions followed at an incredible pace, including the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969.
Moonshots is the definitive photographic chronicle of NASA space exploration, featuring more than 200 remarkable large-format photographs from that eventful era. Though a number of these images have been reproduced in books and magazines over the years, one attribute of this incredible collection has seldom been exploited: the sheer size and resolution of the photography. Aerospace author Piers Bizony scoured NASA’s archives of Hasselblad film frames to assemble the space fan’s ultimate must-have book.
This resulting volume extracts a stunning selection of photographs captured by astronauts using Hasselblad equipment, many of them seldom previously published. The Apollo voyages form the centerpiece of this amazing collection, but equally fabulous images from precursor Gemini missions are also featured, along with later photographs chronicling Space Shuttle missions and even the construction of the International Space Station.
Enzo Ferrari was certainly one of the most powerful names, and probably one of the most powerful and influential men, in motoring history. As a young boy, Enzo dreamt of being an opera singer, a journalist or a racing driver, instead he created one of the most recognised company names in the modern world.
During his 50-year reign he rarely left Maranello – the spiritual home of his beloved race teams and birthplace of the sports cars against which all others are judged – and remained a very private man. This superb racing documentary by acclaimed Formula One producer John Tully reveals the essence of the man and his machines. The story is told from childhood, through 4 decades of racecar development, to a visit by the Pope (in an open top Ferrari Pope-Mobile of course!) shortly before Ferrari’s death in 1988. Narrated by Christopher Lee, this is the definitive Ferrari documentary. Includes exclusive interviews with Enzo himself and many of those who were key to his years of glory: Niki Lauda, Baron Toulo de Graffenried, Phil Hill, Tony Brooks, Clay Regazzoni, Mauro Forghieri. A well produced, historically significant and fascinating film.
The map may not be the territory, and the word may not be the thing, but this guide is as close as it gets.
Since its first publication by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1965, this seminal vade mecum of Los Angeles architecture has explored every rich potency of the often relentless, but sometimes―as the authors have captured here―relenting L.A. cityscape. Revised extensively and updated rigorously since its fifth edition published in 2003, The Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles now contains ninety-six sections organized in thirteen geographic chapters, boasting over 200 new additions to over thousands of entries cataloging every crease of Los Angeles County’s metropolitan sheath.
Originally written by leading architectural historians Robert Winter―described by Los Angeles Magazine as both the “spiritual godfather” and “father” of L.A. architecture―and the late, great David Gebhard, the guide has been revised and edited for a sixth edition by award-winning L.A. urban walker and Winter’s trusted collaborator Robert Inman. Nathan Masters, historian and Emmy-award-winning host, producer, and managing editor of KCET’s Lost LA, writes the foreword.
The Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, hailed by many as the built L.A. opus, explores the man made structures, gardens, parks, and other physical features of a fulgurous Los Angeles. With singular wit and brio, the authors artfully steward readers through all regions and styles, from the Spanish Mexican Period to Postmodern, American Take-over to High Tech, and Beaux-Arts to Craftsman. Sites covered begin with the missions of Spanish California and end with projects completed in 2017.
Dilettantes and experts, practitioners and students, aficionados and osmotic natives alike: all are blood type-compatible with this rich and peerless Bible for architecture enthusiasts. All of its own ilk, this book is thick and alive with a tone of its own making―and doing. A unique style of writing renders the guide simultaneously funny, tasteful, and historically-comprehensive, all with equal measure. Gebhard and Winter fill in the diegetic blanks with a droll eye. More than a critical reference for the bookshelves of scholars, enthusiasts, and practitioners alike, Architecture in Los Angeles is a faithful snapshot of the city as she lives and breathes.
Listed in the Daily Telegraph’s top ten sports books of 2010, Overdrive draws on exclusive interviews with 100 of the world’s quickest men – from Stirling Moss through to Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton – to reveal the magic of motor racing at the limit and beyond. Ayrton Senna once famously crushed the F1 field at Monaco while in an apparent trance, an experience that led him to a spiritual rebirth. Overdrive reveals the grand prix greats have all shared aspects of Senna’s epiphany at their finest hours. To ride on a thousand screaming horses may seem an unlikely source of inner peace but life at 200mph can lead to surreal effects from slow motion to journeys out of the body. Stars of other sports confirm this mystical ‘Zone’ is accessible in any field but in motor racing only the masters tame it, bending time and space as they speed to Earthly laps of the gods. Overdrive is the first book to look deep inside their crash helmets and tell the story of how they do it. Damien Smith (Motor Sport) ‘Brolin risked being laughed at when asking drivers including Alonso, Schumacher and Hamilton if they have experienced out-of-body sensations. Instead, they were happy to oblige. The most original motor racing book of 2010? Without a doubt.’ Simon Briggs (Daily Telegraph) ‘The product of ten years labour, Overdrive is insightful and leaves you with a fresh perspective on F1 – exactly what Senna experienced in Monaco all those years ago.’ Julie Gueguen (FOFA) ‘Far from alpha males fighting it out, Overdrive pictures racers as profoundly human, sometimes mystical men. All agree the perfect lap justifies the years of sacrifice. Not the champagne…’ Laurence Edmondson (ESPNF1) ‘Overdrive leaves you looking at sport’s greatest achievements in a different light. The content is incredibly fresh and brilliant descriptions include darts player Bobby George: ‘Like a thousand starlings flying out of your a*******…’ Dan Cross (Motorsport Musings) ‘Fascinating as it is thought-provoking, Overdrive is no ordinary sports book. It has clearly been a labour of love for the author and his passion for the subject shines through on every page.’
“RIR. Riverside International Raceway. Remind any race fan of times spent there and history witnessed, of how the track died, of what was lost, and you will find the wounds are still raw. Riverside meant so much to so many. The place was dusty, drab, and distant, but it was dear.
For a third of a century, RIR was the spiritual home of speed in southern California and one of the prides of American motorsports. Racers worldwide ranked Riverside with the greatest of road courses. It was not their match in physical beauty, perhaps, but certainly it was on par with the biggest tracks in the United States and even in Europe in magnitude, challenge, and importance.
Within the pages of Riverside International Raceway, celebrated motorsports author and photographer Pete Lyons provides an insider’s look at the moments at Riverside that shaped auto racing history. Explore Riverside’s series of well-designed turns and experience the thrilling events that took place at each one. With an exhaustive collection of rare photography and artwork, this is the authoritative history of one of racing’s greatest tracks”
