Official book collectors thread

For those who missed out the first time, or choose not to spend silly money, there will be soon an affordable re-edition:
https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/luca-dal-monte/enzo-ferrari/9781788404716/

 

Is the new book just a condensed version of the original (512 vs. 968 pages)? Or would there be any new information? (not sure how since the first book was pretty thorough)

 

My guess is that it’s basically the same as the original publishing, but maybe larger pages, smaller print, etc., to get the page count down., but this is just speculation. I didn’t see any mention of technical specifications on Hachette’s web site. My complaint with the original is the odd paper sizing making the book unusually thick.

 

My understanding is that this new version comes with text only, no picture.

 

Regarding the recently released news of a Porterpress Chinetti/NART book being in preparation, as discussed above, may I just offer a little more detail?

My understanding is that poor Michael Lynch had completed a manuscript on Luigi Chinetti Sr and NART just before he so sadly died. Luigi Chinetti Jr had contributed hugely to what Michael wrote. Michael delivered his manuscript very shortly before he passed away.

Sadly, for complex reasons Luigi Jr and David Bull Publishing's people then proved unable to agree on how much of the full story their book should present to the public, and in what style.

After some four to five years of intermittent debate, Luigi Jr opted out and decided to commission myself and Porterpress to produce the book covering his late father's quite remarkable life that he had always visualised.

It will draw exclusively upon the vast resource of Luigi Jr's mind-blowing family/NART archive to provide a genuinely inside view of these intertwined tales - and the quite extraordinary personalities who featured, from immediate post-Great War days right up to the present day.

When Michael was finalising his text I was fortunately able to assist his work in several ways. If I hadn't been advised of his situation by a mutual friend, I would never have suspected he was as ill as in fact he really was - poor chap.

Anyway, the current situation is that there are now two different Chinetti/NART books approaching publication with the David Bull/Michael Lynch volume having a huge head start - but lacking the incredibly detailed archive content that Luigi Jr alone can provide. That will form the backbone of the Porterpress publication.

Luigi Jr of course was with his dad at Le Mans in 1949 when Sr won the first-ever postwar race edition there for his third time overall. He was there again in 1965 when Sr's NART team won a fourth LM 24Hrs with Gregory and Rindt driving...unassisted Image Unavailable, Please Login .

So where these two book projects are concerned It will be a case of choose one or wait a while and try them both. Hopefully they will each prove immensely worthwhile, and what's lacking in one will more than be compensated for in the other. Michael, certainly, was a very good researcher and writer - while the Chinetti family's archive content is simply mind-blowing in the often intimate insight its letters and photographs provide of so very many members of motor racing royalty.

I hope this information solves any apparent puzzlement.

DCN

 

Many thanks for providing this detailed explanation Doug.

 

It's only my overview of a quite complex series of events. DBP's view might well differ.

DCN

 

Three of the key figures passed away which greatly complicated matters. All were highly respected men in their professions.

 

It appears to be a different publication, the initial Luca Del Monte / David Bull publication is titled "Enzo Ferrari - Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automotive Empire" with ISBN 13 9781-935007289 and 968 pages.
The new Luca Del Monte / Octopus Books publication is titled "Enzo Ferrari The Definitive Biography of an Icon" with a different ISBN 13 9781788404716 and 512 pages.
and the comment
"Soon to be an AppleTV+ series, Enzo uncovers a wealth of new facts about the origins, ambitions, and private life of Enzo Ferrari."
https://www.octopusbooks.co.uk/titles/luca-dal-monte/enzo-ferrari/9781788404716/#

 

I don’t know the standards for issuing ISBNs, but I’ll wait for an actual review before I decide to buy. The whole thing seems odd, quite frankly. Just what I need is two of the same book…

 

So, the 'new' book will be a resume of the 'old' book. Most of the tifosi will be well served with 500 pages.

 

Most likely a condensed version, I can't imagine that the new book, with less pages will have any signifcant new content.
Also I see that Bull Publishing still has available a limited number of the standard edition of the book in a designer slipcase for $77.15, that seems a pretty good deal.

 

It appears to be a repackaging for the Apple TV series in which I believe dal Monte has a producer or advisor role.

 

In two weeks I will have the visit of the 024 MB book author where we will discuss the project and possibly select photographs and other dox from my collection.
I have about 300 period pix of this car alone plus dozens of dox including old sales contracts, Count Marzotto letters, and much much more, some stuff also coming from the Edwin K. NIles archive which I own entirely.
Classiche refused to certify this car which led the owner to have a book produced, authored by James Page. Here's a pic of 024 MB taken in the late 1960s.

Marcel Massini

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The first book on Ferrari watches, to be published in April 2024.

https://www.la-boutique.com/produit/ferrari-et-les-montres-mecaniques-a-hautes/


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"Since the days when Enzo Ferrari, having just founded Scuderia Ferrari, placed special orders with leading watch brands to congratulate his drivers and team, links have been forged between Ferrari and top-of-the-range watchmaking. Richly illustrated and documented, this book reveals the diversity of these partnerships. It shows how Ferrari is an inexhaustible source of creativity and stylistic and technical inspiration for the creation of exceptional watches. Two exceptional worlds, each offering innovative, high-performance mechanical components in sleekly styled bodies. The evolution of Ferrari watches closely follows the history of road Ferraris and Scuderia Ferrari. You'll discover the successive partnerships signed with the greatest watch manufacturers from the 1970s to the present day, as well as those forged by personalities who have marked the history of Ferrari (drivers, executives, designers), all complemented by a technical reference and a watchmaking lexicon."

 

I have only 6 from here and now but also a nice bruised rib by trying to enter the seat…

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I attended today a presentation & book signing event featuring Luca Dal Monte. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of this new publication so I didn't ask him about it. He did make a remark that his book was being made into an AppleTV+ series which would have multiple episodes, so there would be more time than in the Michael Mann movie to cover different facets of Enzo's life. He also said that although the show is based on his book, it would be a Hollywood dramatization (like the movie was) rather than a documentary, with some artistic license to be taken. He is consulting to the script writer. He didn't refer to the book as a subset of the prior one, so I assumed he was referring to the prior one.

The sponsor of the event had arranged for copies of the David Bull slipcase version to be available for purchase, and a copy of the Schedoni leather-bound version was auctioned off. The Schedoni version is signed by Luca di Montezemolo, Mario Andretti, Gerhard Berger, Stefan Johansson, Jody Scheckter and the author.

Dal Monte also mentioned that he has written a book about Ferrari's manslaughter trial following the 1957 Mille Miglia, which is not yet available in English. He described his research reviewing the court files of the trial, including the basis for the indictment being an expert's report that said that the wrong type of tires had been installed on de Portago's car, and Ferrari commissioning his own expert's report rebutting the assertions made in the indictment, which formed the basis for the judge's acquittal.

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Thank you.

Other than the book signing, was there some other purpose for the event? What was the venue? Did he mention if/when there will be an English version of the trial book?

 

^^
It was the annual Ferrari birthday event held at the Candy Store car club in Burlingame, Calif. Club members' Ferraris on display included a Boano, Lusso, short nose 275 GTB, Daytona, Daytona Spyder and 328GTS. Unfortunately the Nembo Spyder owned by a club member was not displayed.

Dal Monte's remarks led me to believe that an English version of the manslaughter trial book will be forthcoming, but he didn't give a timeframe. Given he is fluent in English and the English version would open up a larger market for him, I imagine getting a publisher to release the English version as quickly as possible would be important to him.

 

Sounds like a nice event. Thanks!

 

I have not heard anything here about the new Millanta on Ferrari book, so I am mentioning it. Corrado Millanta's photography in Ferrari Automobili 1947-1953, published back in 1985 by Editoriale Olimpia, was excellent. In addition, the previous books put out over the last few years by Alessandro Silva, the author, have been very nice. Finally, the publisher, Sportfahrer Zentrale, is currently offering a pre-publication discount of $125 off the $599 price, with "free" shipping to the USA and Canada, and no sales tax. And, no, I have no connection whatsoever with any of the parties mentioned...

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Can we talk about new book prices for a minute? Not high end Palawan type books, but books like this one in particular:

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The publisher’s web site shows a retail price of $97. The book is not out of print and not rare or a collectible in any way that I’m aware of. I’d like to own the book because I’m especially interested in that era of Ferrari racing history, so I began by putting it in my “save for later” cart at Amazon to wait for the price to come down, and sure enough, it did. It started at full retail and fairly quickly came down to the seventies and bottomed out at about $64 as I recall. It stayed at that price for several weeks and then it jumped up to the current price of $82.77.

I looked on Bookfinder and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of copies available on the web ranging from about $55 (amazon.ca) all the way up to an absurd $300+. And some sellers…Blackwell’s and Chaters, for instance…aren’t even listed on Bookfinder. The preponderance seems to be in the range of $75-$85. How does this work? Do sellers list books as an amazon vendor or on Abe books or alibris, and an algorithm adjusts prices as prices on various web sites change, or as books are sold and others come into the market from different sellers? Pricing among eBay sellers seems to be very tight with nobody willing to accept what I’d consider a reasonable offer. Most eBay sellers are dealers, I believe, so one would think they’d be interested in shifting some inventory.

I must be incredibly naïve about all of this. All I know is I’m not paying more than $70 for this book. And free shipping, dammit!

Edit: I just checked the completed items for this book on eBay. Only one copy has sold since 12/3/2023, for $49.99 plus $7.83 shipping. I just made an offer to an obvious dealer for $60.00. We’ll see what happens.

 

I agree, it is completely opaque. I doubt if booksellers use algorithms like airlines. Btw, the book is nice but no more than that. Another issue with many of these booksellers is packaging, that in many cases is so bad that you prefer paying top dollar at Horton's, knowing that the book arrives in mint condition.

 

Order placed. Expect it’s their usual top quality production

 

+1 on the bad packaging point.