BMW Books

[LunatiC]

EDITED: updated book cover pic on first book.

No, I already have a Bentleys ;)

I went a bit of window shopping today for some books on BMW. You know the ones, have some textual information for about 1/3 of the book, then the rest filled with glorious pics of BMWs of all types, sizes and age.

I came across three in my local bookstores today, but I was wondering of people's opinions on these books, if there's anyone out there that have these that is. Price isn't really a concern for me, I'm more concerned about content. Especially after buying a book on the BMW 5 Series by Marc Cranswick, it was a good book with great pics but it all seemed to be a little jumbled up.

Anyway, without any further ado, here is my shortlist.

BMW - The Car That Stands Apart.
Authors: Rainer W. Schlegenmilch, Hartmut Lehbrink, Jochen von Osterroth
http://www.autoboekenwinkel.com/images/BMWkonemann.jpg
I found one that wasn't shrink-wrapped, it seems the book is printed in three languages laid out in columns on every page, ie. German, French and English.

The Ultimate History of BMW
Author: Andrew Noakes
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/be/92/61ff828fd7a09cdff0820110._AA_.L.jpg

The Complete Book of BMW - Every Model Since 1950
Author: Tony Lewin
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XREWJ13ML._SS500_.jpg

Feel free to comment about which one is better than the other, or if you have your own suggestion, please post below.

[bmwrp8]

I have that book like yours on BMW history:) very nice and interesting:) money well spent :) I also saw a bently and haynes manual for the e34 in the local bookstore but i didn't buy it because I already have my bently and haynes manual for e34 downloaded for free:D

[rob101]

I have that First one I think mine is called only "BMW" but is by the same authors: ISBN 3-8331-1059-7

it rocks in a word. Got the "Mercedes" book in the same series also

[Paul in NZ]

i wa in a bookshop the other day and there was a huge book on bmw with some glorius photos.It was so thick i could not stand there and read it !I am going to go and have another look and will report back.

[J.DeFeo]

The "Every model since 1950" book looks awesome, but every book store I go to has it in shrink wrap and I just can't bring myself to buy a book that's $50+ without reading some of it first.

[LunatiC]

The "Every model since 1950" book looks awesome, but every book store I go to has it in shrink wrap and I just can't bring myself to buy a book that's $50+ without reading some of it first.

Exactly what I am experiencing now! I was lucky that I found a copy of the first book that was not shrink-wrapped, so I got a chance to quickly have a flick through. Hopefully other people who might have purchased the book already could report in here.

Thanks to those who have replied so far, keep them coming in!

[myles]

I have the last one, The Complete Book of BMW. It is very good, a few very minor errors, but is packed with info and photos. It was well worth the money.

[Traian]

If you can find it, get a book called 'BMW - A Celebration' by Eric Dymock, 1-85145-424-1. I bought it at a used bookstore sale for $5 and it's easily the best BMW book I've ever seen. It only covers models up to the E32/E34 which is great imo, and spends a lot of time talking about pre-war, 1950s and racing cars which I think most books lack. And the photography is really amazing, worth paying full price for the book alone, I didn't see one stock photo at all. But I think the best part of all are all the original art-deco BMW adverts (many in German) from the 1920-1930s that pepper the first half of the book!

[LunatiC]

Awesome, thanks for that Traian. I was considering only physically buying books from a book shop here in Australia, but I guess I didn't really think of maybe ordering them online and getting them to me here. If I like what I see with 'BMW - A Celebration' and can't find it here in Oz, I might very well consider ordering it online instead. Thanks for the info!

[Traian]

Hey no worries, that place actually still had a couple more copies the last time I looked (I dunno what they were, overstock from a main book store maybe, they were new!), but that was last year :p Anyway I will have a look tomorrow, I'm actually going by there, and let you know if I see it.

But yeah, it's really nice, even the writing is very good, I think it must have been a British fellow that wrote it because it's definitely got a sort of non North American wit. The only downside is it's written a bit like a thought process, so sometimes things that happened in chronological order are scattered haphazardly a few pages apart.

[wingman]

I have the first one. It is BRILLIANT!!! The pics and short stories are great. I love the PIC of the E34 M5 through the sunroof. Be on the lookout for the excellent 5 series book by James Taylor and also the wildly E34 M20 biased 'BMW 1975-2001 Model by Model' by Laurence Meredith. All these books are well worth having in the collection.