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The Mechanic
The Mechanic
May 19, 2024 9:12 PM

Author:Marc 'Elvis' Priestley,Marc 'Elvis' Priestley

The Mechanic

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Mechanic, written and read by Marc 'Elvis' Priestley.

In the high octane atmosphere of the Formula One pit lane, the spotlight is most often on the superstar drivers. And yet, without the technical knowledge, competitive determination and outright obsession from his garage of mechanics, no driver could possibly hope to claim a spot on the podium. These are the guys who make every World Champion, and any mistakes can have critical consequences.

That's not to say the F1 crew is just a group of highly skilled technical engineers, tweaking machinery in wind tunnels and crunching data through high spec computers. These boys can seriously let their hair down. Whether it be parties on luxury yachts in Monaco or elaborate photo opportunities in gravity-defying aeroplanes, this is a world which thrills on and off the track.

Join McLaren's former Number One mechanic, Marc 'Elvis' Priestley as he tours the world, revealing some of Formula One's most outrageous secrets and the fiercest rivalries, all fuelled by the determination to win.

This is Formula One as you've never seen it before.

Reviews

The principle is sound, as are the author’s credentials… [A] genuine attempt to reflect the day-to-day realities of a relentless life on the road. And it is relayed by someone who doesn’t feel duty-bound to toe the corporate line

—— Motorsport

Here we are privileged to have Marc’s take on the Formula 1 world from the inside… Marc was lucky enough to work alongside David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, among others, but it is his close relationship with Kimi Raikkonen that we gain most insight into as we read… In short, it is a must read for any F1 fan, and I can highly recommend

—— Sarah Merritt , Badger GP

‘Sir Matt Busby’s story has been told many times but, rarely with such perception and scholarly attention to detail ‘ a stunning biography ... destined to become a classic of its genre’

—— Patrick Collins

‘An outstanding book’

—— Phil Shaw , Backpass

‘Superbly written … a book all football fans should read.’

—— Michael Crick

Few sports have retained the values of honesty, hard work and pride, which underpin its history, quite like rugby league. Rarely have those values been revealed with such clarity and candour as in the pages of Underdogs, a new book by Tony Hannan which focuses on what can be achieved when a sports club is at the heart of a community... Beautifully written and infused with dry humour, there is also an energetic and important debate on why rugby league has failed to attract an Asian audience, nor aligned itself with ethnic communities in areas populated with generations of immigrants. Mostly, however, Underdogs is an exploration of enduring working class culture with its extended family and a story of what can be achieved when a band of average but committed sportsmen take guardianship of their reputations. It is rugby in the raw and essential reading for anyone with a passing interest in why sport really matters.

—— Frank Malley , Sports Journalists' Association

Fantastic... It's as if I'm in Batley as I read it.

—— Adrian Durham, talkSPORT

A tremendous book.

—— Harry Gration, BBC Look North

Tremendous insight.

—— Mark Wilson, Radio Yorkshire

Excellent read.

—— Danny Lockwood, League Weekly

Hannan has never been afraid to voice his opinions on the game's hierarchy or the structure of RL, and his insight along with a cheeky sense of humour makes Underdogs a compelling read.

—— Paul Jackson, Scribble by the Ribble

[A] remarkable new book… Felicities of phrasing and cadence on every page…each of the six chapters offers something of the taut coherence and closeness of the structure of musical variation.

—— Peter Davidson , Tablet

[A] remarkable new book… A love song to light… Ann Wroe is perfectly equipped to deal with this rich mix.

—— Piers Plowright , Camden Review

A unique voice in nonfictionSix Facets of Light exists in a world of quivering immanence.

—— Kathryn Hughes , Guardian

She switches from thoughts about an English lane to Coleridge, Thoreau, Samuel Palmer, larks, ragwort and Ravilious’s taste in poetry, in effortless and beguiling succession.

—— Royal Academy

A wide-ranging and imaginative work of non-fiction… Never less than engaging.

—— Erica Wagner , New Statesman

Six Facets of Light is dazzlingly original.

—— Lucy Hughes-Hallett , Guardian

Six Facets of Light is a book that is making me look and think more closely, and closer again. In its own way this feels like a hymn of praise, a thanksgiving and a celebration of something replete with mystery… Slowly the shackles of modern scientific thought and progress and theory slip away and I find myself observing light as if I have only just realised it existed. How clever a book has to be to achieve that.

—— Dove Grey Reader

A genre-crossing consideration of what light has meant to writers, painters and lovers of landscape.

—— Oldie

Inspiring, beautifully written.

—— Sunday Times

An exquisitely written study of light in the works of various poets and painters.

—— Daily Telegraph

A wonderful literary meditation… This book is suffused with vivid personal memory and precise, delicate observation of Nature. Wroe’s feeling for landscape is both sensitive and acute; her style is lyrical and precise.

—— Hugo Davenport , Resurgence and Ecologist

A book for winter.

—— Honor Clerk , Spectator, Books of the Year

People of faith talk a great deal about light, and we would do well to learn more about it from Wroe’s quick-eyed love of it.

—— Mark Oakley , Church Times

Wroe passes her elusive subject, light itself, through the prism of her dazzlingly well-read mind, and the resulting rainbows fairly dance across the page… An utterly original book that will leave you, in every sense of the word, enlightened.

—— Claire Lowdon , Sunday Times, Book of the Year

Ann Wroe’s Six Facets of Light is a fascinating and original meditation [on light]. Six Facets of Light is an exquisite collage of relations, a prose poem to “what escaped” absolutely everyone – and to how madly, brilliantly, they tried to “be in step”.

—— Joanna Kavenna , Times Literary Supplement
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