Notable: Get your motors running

Notable

Get your motors running

Three books delve into the history of cars, and the people who create and love them.

Auto Biography: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream (It Books) by Earl Swift is the true story of a felon with more than 70 arrests behind him who discovers the rusting hulk of a 1957 Chevy — and a road to redemption.

I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford (Scribner) by Richard Snow, now in paperback, is an engaging account of how the hugely influential Ford invented the Model T and transformed American industry.

The Life of the Automobile: The Complete History of the Motor Car (Thomas Dunne Books) by Steven Parissien takes a wide-ranging look at the machine that perhaps more than any other has shaped the modern world, its impact and the human beings behind it.

Colette Bancroft, Times book editor