Biker Bookshelf

Anyone hoping to understand the success (and odd failure) of Harley-Davidson over the past thirty years would do well to read Brock Yates Outlaw Machine.

I first encountered Brock Yates’ writing in the pages of Car & Driver – and found him entertaining, informative, and sometimes provocative. Yates book about Harley-Davidson, the company, and the place it’s machines have in American history and culture is (in my experience) without equal. As but one example, his vignette on the notorious 1947 Hollister “bike riot” and the accuracy of photographs in depicting “reality” is certainly thought provoking. Published in 1999 the book provides a great thumbnail history of Harley-Davidson.

On a somewhat darker note, former Hell’s Angel Motorcycle Club President Ralph “Sonny” Barger compiled a volume of biker stories – Ridin’ High, Livin’ Free. I’d not really recommend this book on its literary merits. The prose is turgid, at best, and most of the characters come across (in my eyes at least) as unpleasant. With that said, the book does have merit in helping understand the biker point of view.

One book that often gets mentioned in online discussions of “biker literature” is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – a citation that always makes me smile, since it is usually pretty obvious that the person making the recommendation has never read the book. While the book does have some descriptions of a motorcycle trip, it really has little to do with either Zen or motorcycle maintenance. Now almost thirty five years old, I’d say that while the concepts of quality and metaphysics explored in the book are timeless, the prose and style have not held up particularly well.