Given its scope, this book provides the reader with a widely comprehensive view of how both the automobile and the industry surrounding it developed and evolved from the late 19th century to the eve of the First World War. I read "DRIVE! Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age" more out of curiosity and also because I hail from Michigan. So I grew up with a keen sense of how the automobile has profoundly influenced and shaped both society and the world economy.

I was also intrigued to learn about the patent battle between the backers of George Selden (who had taken out a patent in the late 1870s on the concept of an internal combustion engine later considered to be essential to the future development of the automobile) --- i.e. ALAM (or the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers) and Henry Ford. This took place between 1903 and 1911. ALAM sought to break Henry Ford the outsider, who after failing twice to establish an auto company, was now on the threshold with his latest company to achieve unrivaled success with the Model T.

The story of the lawsuit between Ford and ALAM is one that the author tells in great detail. The only difficulty I had in reading this book was in trying to fully grasp some of the technical aspects of the various engines vital to the automobile's viability and the related technologies. Yet, on the whole, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about how the automobile and the industry it spawned developed during its formative years - and revolutionized the world. Hence, the five (5) stars.

So I read a lot of non-fiction this year.  76 books.  I've been thinking about why my non-fiction reading exploded this year and all I can say is that this year I craved an escape into facts, or as must be evident by my list above, the desire to escape into a bookshop and hide for the duration.

With few exceptions, the ones I liked best, the 5 star books-I-want-to-hug were all about books or words.  A definite theme going on this year.  The exceptions were all over the place though: a gardening book, a cultural anthropology book and an illustrated book of the Psalms.  The two that didn't fit above are below:

  The Produce Companion: From Balconies to Backyards--the Complete Guide to Growing, Pickling and Preserving - Meredith Kirton,Mandy Sinclair  

  The Illuminated Book of Psalms: The Illustrated Text of all 150 Prayers and Hymns - Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers  

My 4.5 star reads this year are also worth mentioning and even more numerous (15) and are much more varied in subject.  More books about books and books about words or grammar, but science and history also make a showing. These are books that were excellent but for whatever reason had something I questioned or found confronting.  With scientific books that's almost always animal related.  Sometimes the book just didn't make me want to hug it, but I still recommend it.  Who knows?  Maybe it'll be one you want to hug. :)  

Fucking Apostrophes

The Gift Of The Magi And Other Stories

The Book of Human Emotion

The Polysyllabic Spree

A Passion for Books: A Book Lover's Treasury 

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure

Lost in Translation

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen

The Poisoner's Handbook

The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland

The Sceptical Gardener: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Good Gardening

Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands

Happy Reading!

So this is how collectors/addicts get started, from trying to get a used book at under $20 to spending hundreds of dollars on 1st editions (The really expensive books go for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars but this is out of the authors' league). This book is a good read for those and *only those* who harbour secret (or not-so-secret) ambitions of starting their own book collection one day. Now, how does one attend a book auction here in Singapore?

There's a blurb on the back of this book from Kirkus Reviews that says Used and Rare is  "A sort of Year in Provence for book lovers."  This is the perfect description for this book, except it was funnier; I laughed out loud in several places.

Used and Rare chronicles the journey of the Goldstones into book collecting, starting with an innocent search for a used copy of War and Peace suitable for a gift.  This is how lifelong, obsessive passions begin.  In fact it occurred to me as I read this that I have reason to be thankful that MT does not share my passionate love of books because if he did, we'd be the Goldstones and I shudder to think of the swath of destruction the two of us having a shared passion would wreck on our finances.  

Having started reading this last night before bed (and making MT stay awake long enough so I could read parts of it aloud to him), I blew off everything I had to do today so that I could sit down and finish it.  It's well written, it's funny, it's interesting and surprisingly it has what could sort of be called a plot, in that there's a journey these two take through book collecting and by the end of the book they come out the other other side with realisations made and lessons learned.  In fact, the way the book ended was just the cherry on top of a perfectly lovely read.

This book isn't necessarily going to appeal to people who love to read, but people who love to own books and take great pleasure in being physically surrounded by the works of authors who have educated, entertained and changed them for better or worse?  I think those people would love this book and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. 

"'No, no. We already have a paperback. I was hoping for a hardcover. It's a birthday present for Larry.'

'You're getting Larry War and Peace for his birthday?' interjected Matthew, who had tagged along behind us. 'What's the matter?  Things aren't going well at home?'"

Early yet, but I'm loving this book so far.