Books

In the 1920s, Professor A. M. Low DSc, who wrote articles simplifying obscure scientific facts, told us that one day the human race would lose its legs, because it would never need to go out, as it would watch continual TV, and eat food in tablet form. Aldous Huxley forecast `smellies’, cinemas in which appropriate scents would waft to the audience in company with the films. The latter has yet to happen, but the internet brings Low’s prophecy nearer! Nevertheless, for the present the flow of books is as great as ever.

Brooklands Books have a new Portfolio on Morgan: 1968-2001 (ISBN 185 520 5777, £24.95), which fills its 120 pages with reproductions of road test reports, etc., from most of the leading motor magazines of the time, including how! enjoyed Welsh hill roads with a new Plus 8. Shire Publications have a £3.50 mini-book by Graham Robson on The Ford Cortina (ISBN 7478 05199), covering the Mkl and its competition successes.

The MGCC’s Vintage MG Yearbook 2001 has arrived and there are some copies left at £6 post-free while supplies last. The Triple M Register has its 40 Years Commemorative Guide to historic MGs of this type, which includes very fine pictures, from a 1930 12/12 M-type to a racing 1934 K3 Magnette.

The Daily Telegraph’s ‘Honest John’ has Mystely Motors, 128 pages of unusual older cars from 1903 onward. The book may appeal to those with £9.99 to spare (ISBN 1 84119 430 1, Constable & Robinson, London).

From the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust comes Fast Jets the history cf reheat development at Derby, by Cyril Elliot and John Goodwin. It runs to 126 enormous landscape pages with masses of diagrams and pictures, and is available to non-members for a very modest £6.00 (ISBN 1 872922 201) from R-R Heritage Trust, PO Box 31, Derby, DE24 8BJ.