thanks to Kim for sharing his review of a artist's book that is not likely to get distributed in the USA. 'The Fantastic Bus' winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize, and adapted into a sold out play!

In 2024, the author and illustrator Jakob Strid was awarded the Nordic Council's Children's and Youth Literature Prize for his book 'The Amazing Bus'. It took him fifteen years to write and draw the book. He tells both poetically and seriously about how a group of different animals, from small turtles to lions and rhinos, set out together to find the magical land of Balanka. 

The little bear Taku tells about how the gallery of characters in the story builds an enormous, four-story high, 10-wheeled bus. The prime mover behind the project is the cat Spir, whose green fur is due to the fact that he once fell into a barrel of radioactive slime... 

An equally important main character is the bus itself, which in addition to its many piston engines has jet turbines and wings. It is all drawn technically quite correctly, which makes the illustrations extra enjoyable for car enthusiasts to study in more detail. It is clear that the author has spent a lot of time looking at and understanding the technology of trucks before putting pen to paper.

 The animals' goal in building the imaginative vehicle is to find a flower that can save the sick Timo's life. This results in a trip through wild landscapes, across desolate plains, along a bridge over the North Pole and on to the other side of the world. The experiences along the way range from technical challenges to a meeting with the gods, to flashbacks about how they once tried to fly to Balanka in airships. 

The book from the publisher Gyldendal is a small work of art, and can be read with equal pleasure by both children and adults. It is worth every penny.

https://www.koegebib.dk/artikler/born/den-fantastiske-bus-far-nordisk-rads-litteraturpris

https://www.gosee.news/loves/illustration for more images

https://www.instagram.com/jakob_martin_strid/

The Fantastic Bus even put on a sold out show at the Royal Theatre of Copenhagen!

Experience Jakob Martin Strid’s grand masterpiece in a new musical and poetic production for children, as The Fantastic Bus takes over the Main Stage at the Royal Danish Playhouse. 

Oct 8-Nov 30

Life in Ahnstarr City is not easy for Taku, Spir, and their friends. Their small wooden houses by the harbor are being torn down, and little Timo is seriously ill. 

Only the rare saffron lily, which grows in the dreamland of Balanka, can cure him. 

When two old Phantom-8 jet engines from a failed expedition 25 years ago are rediscovered, and a plasma generator is brought back to life, Spir has an idea: let’s build a bus and travel to Balanka!

https://artelize.com/event/161075-the-fantastic-bus-

Book review, The Motorcycle, 120 Years of Motorized Masterpieces From the Haas Moto Museum (book will be released on Oct 17th)

the section break pages are quite nice

Terrific design and layout, very nice cover imprint under the dust jacket, be sure to look at that

by the numbers

About 235 pages of photos, and captions. No articles, no reason to dive into the research on every bike and all it's parts. Great photos, great collection, simple eye candy

It took 2 hours to read through, very satisfying

summed up

Better than most coffee table books, as it's the inventory of a museum, and you could go to the museum, and take photos of your favorites, but, would they be this good? Maybe. Would you see everything and get the descriptions too? Probably not. 

So, coffee table books (especially this one) impress me, as they are less expensive (or free in a library), very thorough, and quite informative beyond just being good photography. 

I learned a lot

The 1911 Zenith had a gear shift, with a sliding rear wheel that adjusted the belt length to different settings

Alejandro De Tomaso bought the Benelli company in 1971

1914 Wall Autowheel simply bolted onto a woman's bicycle

and the full page close up photos are real good! 

Crazy, right? Military Harley with a Rotax engine.1999 MT500, 355 were made. The engine is known for dirt bike racing

Alp Sungurtekin set 8 world records, and was the fastest unstreamlined, pushrod racer ever with an engine under 1000 cc. 175 at El Mirage. 

It's asymmetric handlebar design allowed Alp to twist his shoulder and reduce his aerodynamic drag

1970 Jim Gee Truimph twin engine racer, developed over ten years, and the engines rotated in opposite directions

1917 New Imperial, for the Russian market, had " War Product" on the engine. Made for the Russian govt in WW1, but was not delivered after the revolution in Russia led the UK govt to cancel the contract

great idea, the rack over the back tire rotates down and becomes the bike stand! Very cool innovation

The Haas collection seemed to have one of everything but a Böhmerland, they even have a Kimura and a Nimbus!

Wow, a collection of Michael Ulman sculptures! I love his art, I first saw it in 2007 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=+Ulman

I only noticed 3 mistakes

If you define something once, you don't repeat it. You are advised not to give a shorter definition the 2nd time

and in the two images above, it's clear they didn't use a proofreader (I am a proofreader, I think, because I notice these things)

https://insighteditions.com/products/the-motorcycle

https://www.amazon.com/Motorcycle-Definitive-Collection-Haas-Museum/dp/B0BTX9R2BZ/ref=sr_1_1

book review, Corvette 70 years

the front and back cover under the dust jacket, is a terrific over view of what's in between. Nearly everything.

the dust jacket

also a beautiful photo

there are 30 chapters, and they are only missing one thing because the book seems to be of such a singular purpose and focus, that while easily accomplishing the nearly encyclopedic categorizing of the making and racing of Corvettes, and their design - it never mentioned the impact that the Corvette had on the American culture. 

It's missing a chapter on astronauts, Hollywood, and pop culture in general. It has nothing on the high school prom car, the drag racing butchery, the secretary AND the boss of the small company parking matching Corvettes in the parking lot, the labor union strike effecting the manufacturing delays, the dealership grand spectacles and salesmanship, the use of the car in research and development of racing tires, the Baldwin Motion/Gibb/and Yenko specials sold to the public, the autoshow cut apart specials

It would be easy to mistake this book as a General Motors or Chevrolet Division official publication. 

Anyway, this is a review, not a ass kidding smootcheroo. It's an opinion piece from my point of view, and I guess that by reading this, you're not interested in how much the author loves the result of their work, or how much the factory management and board of directors is blown away by the high praise for the history of, and the present new mid engine Corvette. 

So, the book takes about 12 hours to read, the first half is simple to read through about 3 chapters an hour, and the 2nd half of the book may as well be categorized RACING. 

Mahogany buck

There is a sweet dive into the early years and development, and if the 70s happened, well, no one seems to be looking to mention much of them here. Instead, there are chapters that instantly distract the reader with the special development mules, the racing specials, the long term prototypes that kept the autoshow circuit buzzing about the mid engine car that might yet come to be, etc. 

Duntov in a 3 piece suit at Milford, seeing about the altimeter reading

The book also isn't linear. Though roughly left to right, history to present, it's often jumping ahead to something interesting, and then after paragraphs on that, heads back to catch up on the less dazzling year to year improvements. Example, the 1st 3 chapters are the 50s to 62, then 2 chapters on racing, styling, engineering, and then the 63. 

Everything I was interested in learning about was covered quite well, the ZR1, ZL1, the L88, and the ZR 2. The fuelies, the tankers, etc. Covered. 

Now, also it's worth pointing out that the author is utterly devoted to the brand, and isn't objective, nor comparative as most car guys are. If you were talking to most car guys, they'd say what they admire about some car, AND what was as flop, or a fail. Not in this book. So, like I said earlier, this a all about the Corvette. If this was about how the Corvette struggled, was upstaged, was competing in GM for the "ooh shiny!" ago pumps, it would mention a lot of stuff that this book doesn't, but that car guy culture sure keeps in mind when discussing most things, and doesn't avoid the bad and ugly aspects. This book's author isn't aware of the existence of the word "blemish" or "blister"

Now, I suppose if I were getting the open door treatment to the archives of something only the librarians get to look at, I wouldn't see that there was anything but trophys and treasures. Like Disney's white glove areas... not a museum, but, not open to anyone that hasn't devoted decades to keep out of the public access. Know what I mean? I certainly would love access, and dang, tunnel vision ENGAGE! 

So, getting back on track... the Corvette, affordable sports car, top of the GM food chain, and out performing the Italian, British, German, etc etc competition at less than 1/2 or probably 1/4 of the price - without using metric tools. I love that. 

The book is an eye opener to the world of GM divisions and departments. I have never heard of most of the departments that specialized in focused vehicle aspects, like aerodynamics, etc. The author is fantastic in bring light to the development of the crucial design aspects, and how these challenges were solved by the brilliant engineers in the Chevrolet Engineering Center, Chevrolet Research and Development, the Packard Electric Division, and cooperation with Cal Tech, Lockheed Martin, etc.

For example, page 56 dives into the hidden headlight development at Cal Tech's GALCIT wind tunnel, by engineer Carl Jakust, a former B 17 pilot. Also the aerodynamic testing of Dr Keyopoulos, head of GM Design, who fixed the lift problem for the C2. Page 103 gets into the solutions of improved handling and braking via the FE7 and ZO7 packages. 

Hell, I thought Ken Block invented the word Gymkhana, but learned it was the FE7 suspension package on the Corvette

this book excels where it focused the most, showing the evolution of the Corvette. 

To read along is to see how every year there was an effort to succeed in losing weight, increasing performance, improving the manufacturing, etc. It's a page by page and year by year analysis of how each important factor was improved on, and where the materials were changed, lightened, hydroformed, and even pultruded. (page 229, the hollow rear bumper bear of carbon fiber is formed by pultrusion) Yup, that's a new one to me, and when getting the chassis perfected for the 2020 rear engine Corvette, they found a new method to make it thinner, lighter, AND stronger. 

Ok, onto my pet peeve about the editor, author, etc who don't realize that spellcheck is NOT preventing mistakes from getting into print, as I often find these, and wish I was offered the opportunity to read these books BEFORE they go to print with these mistakes (or better yet, offered a consultation job!)

if you see that, then for god's sake, take some mental health moments to add spaces between words. I can't imagine how that wasn't corrected before going to print. Page 230 and 231

But the one that really jarred me out of reading utopia, was 

to show the error, I used the next paragraph that demonstrates that a mention of torsion results in the use of the term Stiff, not Still. 

Hey, I only need to post about these little errors to build a resume for future publishers, where I can send the links, so they can see how useful I will be in preventing the embarrassment of these from going to print in THEIR books. It's too late for this one. 

Book Review: Hot Rod magazine 75 Years hardcover anniversary celebration

Amazon's preview gives you a good idea of what the book looks like all through the 9 chapters. 

203 pages, a look at decades of photographs of the cars and people that hot rodding history is made of,  at seven and a half decades, because the legends of So Cal hot rod journalists recorded the history as it happened, with milestones at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Pikes Peak, in drag racing, and through the early days of organized racing on the dry lake beds, and the horsepower wars of the ‘60s

It takes about 5 hours to read

1st impression, what a cool book to sum up the vast experience I, and other Hot Rod magazine readers have had every month, for decades. In a couple hours of reading you get taken back through 3/4s of a century of the magazine that most thoroughly covered American ingenuity of hot rodding cool cars

My complaints are from my expectations of the editors of Hot Rod magazine, and this book's editor and writer, to spell the names of Burt Munro correctly, and Elena Scherr, and to proofread the book to avoid mistaking fleet for feet, and chassisied for chassied. http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2022/11/reading-book-hot-rod-magazine-75-years.html

 Since I can find these, anyone who worked at HRM can, and should. OR the book maker Motorbooks and Quarto should accept my offer to proofread and find these mistakes for them before they get their books printed

Something I hadn't expected, is the insight into the editors of the magazine, and how they worked in the hot rodding aftermarket industry. One worked for Edelbrock, one for Schiefer clutches, etc

There was little mention of the celebs that have been featured in the magazine, as this book focused on the magazines production instead. I noticed that there was only a brief mention of Von Dutch, Ed Roth, Boyd Coddington, Dean Jeffries, George Barris, Gene Winfield, Smokey Yunick, Hot Rod Deluxe, and no mention of Jimmy Shine, The Smokers meet, Karl and Veda Orr, George Hurst, Riverside races, LA Roadster Show, Oakland Roadster Show, GNRS, etc. 

I was surprised to find that the earliest decade was not more focused on, and no mention was made of the fact that George Barris was one of the article writers. 

If you don't subscribe anymore, I sure don't blame you, because the glory days of Hot Rod are long over. It's intellectual property and investment value can't be underestimated though, and several pages of the book talk about the number of times in the past twenty years that Hot Rod has been bought, sold, flipped, and underbudgeted by the newest owners because no one is running it for it's present or future glory. There are only 4 people on staff, and I expect it to stop being a printed magazine within a year due to the business of money first, legacy last, and the change of culture of the automotive world now that state and federal govt pushes for quiet electric cars, and the bonkers days of dealership race cars seems to be winding down. 

Book review, BIlly F Gibbons, Rock + Roll Gearhead

I had no idea BFG was a sketch artist, but seriously, that's fucking cool.
This printing of this book has this killer box cover - few books come in cases/boxes, unless you're getting a boxed set, and this is fantastic to have covered with a self portrait. Serious, you know how much I love art, I post art - car art mostly, all the time. But I also have posted a hell of a lot of artists too, and had no idea BFG was one. So, shocking, fucking cool

this is an inset he seems to have free handed in a book he took time with to autograph for a VIP who later sold the book

that's some nice pinstriping!

Time it takes to read, about 5 hours, depending on how long you look at the guitars, and how fast you read. But, seriously, it's a perfect afternoon book.

Pages: About 222

Photos - a category that I have in most book reviews, as they simply are rare in most of the books I've reviewed, but, this book is every page, so, no point in counting

Problems? I still insist that the publisher should have me, or a qualified editor look at the book before going to press. I shit you not.

Everyone reading this book will be familiar with Holley carbs, lets just go with that understand as few people ever reading this will be living in the Arctic, the Amazon, or some other place without cars, knowledge of hot rods, and familiarity of Holleys.

So, how the hell did they misspell Holley? Spellcheck? Could anyone rely on Spellcheck to edit their text before going to press? No one I'd pay to be an editor.

The other three: Zero mention of the nudu hat that BFG wears all the time now, or that he got it when on tour in Africa, trading his Stetson to the leader of the Bamileke tribe for this beanie. Since it's been the most drastic change in the way BFG appears for the past 20 some years, vs the MTV 80s when he wore the Stetson, I think it not only deserves a mention, the explanation about it is crucial to her persona. When you are never seen without something as unusual as that hat, in contrast to your previous public appearance, it's worth a mention.

Page 122 says the 1958 Thunderbird, Mexican Blackbird, "has the high horse Tri Power V8" under the hood.
I'm guessing that you, too, know that the 352 was a 4 barrel. Since Hot Rod Magazine did an article on the car, and said "Just your basic 352" then I'm going to go along with that, and point out that this is a mistake. It doesn't have 3 carbs. Also, "Tri Power" was a Pontiac term, and fender badge. Ford didn't put 3 two barrel carbs on cars until the '60, and the T Bird didn't get it until 1961.
https://www.pjstar.com/business/20190603/cars-we-remember-very-first-tri-power-setup-dates-back-to-1957-edelbrock-jr-recalls-440-mopar-six-packs

Or you can see the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eExs3166WaY where Adam Corolla interviews Pete, BFG, and lifts the hood and talks about it.

Page 156 shows a guitar that has zero mention, and since that page is mentioning the guitar above it, there's a problem, the bottom guitar is not the same as the photo caption for the top guitar, and it's the only guitar in the section of the book on guitars, that has no caption. I'm not the only one looking at this book closely because of the look into the collection of guitars. So, it matters.

After those issues, this book is a dream. Just terrific. If you didn't know that it's about 15 years old with a couple pages of new photos that weren't in the original 2005 book, you wouldn't care that it's not been updated to show the other cars, the Hollywood type events BFG has been busy with, (guest starring in a recurring role on the tv show Bones, or co-starring in his own Discovery channel show with Jimmy Shine, and that some of the guitars it shows were sold years ago. https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/musical-instruments/electric-guitars/zz-top-s-billy-gibbons-owned-li-l-red-gibson-electric-guitar-1961-total-2-items-/a/7089-46516.s  It's not like books are required to be updated with each reprint, but, it would be nice. This did get about 20 or 30 more pages, and about 10 of them are the intro full page photos. Another 10 or so are the Whiskey Runner hot rod and the '51 Willys. Really cool

That is the coolest log art I've seen in a while. I've now looked at it a dozen times, I still laugh and love it. It's perfect

It's pretty thorough until about 1999 or 2000. Which is the last time I bought a ZZ Top cd, and went to the concert.

Book review summed up, fantastic. Fans of ZZ Top will dig it, hot rodders with a familiarity of ZZ Top, but who read this book for the cars, not so much. It doesn't dig into the cars as much as I've done on my blog, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-cadzilla-looked-like-before.html  for example and I was hoping for more. More about the cars, a look into his garage (that IS what the publisher promises, " throws wide Gibbons’ garage and studio doors " and I don't take a promise like that lightly. No photos inside the garage, no photos inside the studio. Not cool man.

Things I learned from reading this, BFG has played with nearly everyone, from the guys who were still playing into the late 60s like Hendrix and a hundred others, to being friends with Bo Diddley and other legends, of course it makes sense, but hell, I didn't know ZZ Top went on tour with Hendrix!

Paula Abdul was the choreographer for the ZZ Top videos

ZZ Top got some of their outfits from Nudie Cohn 's haberdashery

I hadn't heard about the cabin that Muddy Waters grew up in, at Stovall Farms, in Missisippi, that was severely damaged and one of its roof timbers built from cypress beams was made into a guitar that was commissioned as a fundraiser for the Delta Blues Museum

I had no idea of the variety of guitars he has, from steel guitars (National) of the 1930s, to custom ones that he toured with or used in videos. If you're a guitar fan, the other 2 parts, biography and cars, are just warm ups until you hit the guitar collection section.

I didn't know that BFG has a Gretsch guitar that Von Dutch pinstriped, and it might be the same one he learned of as a teen that a group in his hometown played, mentioned early in the book

There may be a better book out there on his guitars, or maybe a better one on his cars, but I'm going to say that you're best off getting this one, if you are into both guitars, and cars, and especially if you want to learn more about ZZ Top.

https://www.amazon.com/Billy-Gibbons-Rock-Roll-Gearhead/dp/0760367973
https://territory-mag.com/articles/rock-n-roll-alchemy-in-a-masters-hands/ if you want to read more about Bolin guitars

and you can get a good preview of 20 pages of the book on Google books, as they scanned the original printing, so, none of the new 30 pages

reminder that Netflix has the documentary on ZZ Top hitting the 50th year of playing music together, and, this book would make a cool fathers day present

You might want to have You tube ready to pull up the many songs that are referred to, as some will sound familiar and you might want to listen to them again to catch on to what they are, and some that are mentioned will likely inspire you to listen to them for enjoyment again.

By the way, something I read in an interview that wasn't even mentioned in this book, was how he was inspired to get into music, more specifically the blues. His dad was and exec in the music recording studio business, and:
 “I was about seven or eight years old. He took me with him one day in the car down to a recording studio where he told me to sit in the booth and something was going to go down. He then went off to an office or something, leaving me kicking my heels. After a short time, BB King and his band walked in, set up and began recording. I’ll never forget the moment. I guess it gave me a sort of head start in the music.”

PS, in a Rolling Stones recent interview was this Q and A

Everyone always talks about the negative aspects of the collapse of the recording industry. What are the positive aspects? It’s now up to the individual to invent the kind of business offer that he thinks will work. You no longer are you slave labor to someone else’s wishes. I think it’s a glorious awakening to know you have the opportunity to step up and control your destiny.

https://billygibbons.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BillyFGibbonsOfficial/

for a look at ZZ Top instead, watch the Netflix documentary ZZ Top: That Little ol Band From Texas
but though it's a good documentary, with really nice early concert footage, it is only covering the band until the MTV vids from Eliminator, and it's very fun to see those again. But that's it, nothing after that, no Afterburner, no Recycler, no XXX. Yes, I am a fan of this band's music and hot rods. But apparently, they have no interest in documenting the past 20 years at all.