Books


Review: Group A

While my motorsports exploits (when I was young) were limited to autocross and regularity competitions on the Hockenheimring and Nürburgring, and my current Sim Racing hobby is centred on circuit racing, too, my first and true love when it comes to motorsports is rally. My formative years in this regard […]


Review: How to Build a Car

Most racing-related (auto)biographies focus on the drivers. But there are other interesting stories to tell about racing in general and Formula One in particular. Adrian Newey’s autobiography offers a unique insight into the world of Formula One. Newey knew from an early age that he wanted to design race cars. […]


Review: Setting up a Home Car Workshop

I stumbled upon this book by Julian Edgar through a book tip in a German classic car magazine. Since having a home workshop one day is a dream of mine, I ordered it. As the name implies, it covers the important aspects of setting up your own smallish car workshop: […]


Review: Colours of Speed

Porsche has always been about racing. In the 1960s, it often appeared as if racing came first and street car production second. New race cars were introduced almost every year, but due to the focus on lightweight low-displacement cars, the ultimate goal, the overall victory at Le Mans, remained elusive. […]


Review: Catalyst, a Rogue One story

Catalyst, by James Luceno, is the companion novel to Rogue One, the first standalone movie in the Star Wars franchise. Lucasfilm/Disney seem to have settled on providing more background by the means of novels. It has been done for The Force Awakens and the Rebels TV show before. Catalyst tells […]


Black Ops

Black Ops is an interesting addition to the Osprey Wargames series. It aims at wargaming, as the name implies, “Black Operations”. At its base is a simple D6-driven system. Character abilities (essentially attack, close combat, morale, defense) are target numbers for D6 rolls, with a few simple modifiers to the […]


The 13th Valley

Disclaimer: I read this book in the Dutch translation The 13th Valley by John Del Vecchio has been called the classic Vietnam novel. Other classic books (e.g. Dispatches by Michael Herr, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brian, Chickenhawk by Robert Mason) were first-hand accounts, although O’Brian often crosses the […]


Star Wars: X-Wing

Playing the X-Wing miniatures game has re-kindled my interest in Star Wars. I have not only started working on new miniatures and terrain for Star Wars Miniatures Battles, but also decided to read Michael Stackpole’s Star Wars: X-Wing books. Of the nine original books, the first four (Rogue Squadron, Wedge’s […]


Sony Reader PRS-T1 and Calibre

I got a Sony Reader, the current PRS-T1 model, for my birthday. Reviews have shown that it’s the e-reader with the best PDF support, very important for me. It also has Wi-Fi and a web browser. While e-ink displays are quite slow, the web browser works just fine for reading […]


Review: Camera

While things geared up in the 18th century, the 19th century was the century of profound changes and inventions. Trains, practical electricity, the telegraph and telephone, and, late in the 19th century, the car and airplane, form the base for our modern connected world. Another invention of the time, directly […]