If you're looking for a Christmas gift for a fellow Formula One enthusiast then I have a few suggestions.

To begin with, may I suggest 'The Last Road Race, the 1957 Pescara Grand Prix', by Richard Williams. I have always been a huge fan of Richard's writing. He is a former editor of Time Out and Melody Maker, the first presenter of the Old Grey Whistle Test (pre-Bob Harris) and latterly sports writer for the Guardian newspaper here in Britain. Such a mixture has prompted comments such as "I think I've died and gone to heaven" when Miles Davis was played at a Ferrari launch a couple of years ago!

Richard has written a number of books, including 'The Death of Ayrton Senna' and a tremendous biography of Enzo Ferrari - which I couldn't put down, it read like a thriller!

His latest offering is a short report on the 1957 Pescara Grand Prix in Italy, won by Stirling Moss. Pescara has two places in Formula One record books: it is the longest circuit ever used in the World Championship - yes, longer than the Nurburgring - and it is the only championship round to be named after a town, rather than a country.

Although it counted only once for the World Championship, it was a town that hosted several races and Williams superbly recounts the full history, including the politics, of this 1957 race. The atmosphere of the time is marvellously captured, of families traipsing across mountains pre-motorways in little Fiats to attend the event, of the drivers making their own, convoluted travel arrangements. The circuit is described in detail, so is the state of the sport at the time of the race. The inside front and rear cover is a draughtman's detail of the Vanwall transporter!

'The Last Road Race' is only a short volume, but highly readable. It is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson and costs just £9.99 and worth every penny.

More up-to-date is Martin Brundle's Working The Wheel which he has written in conjunction with my colleague, Observer journalist and Radio Five Live commentator Maurice Hamilton. The recipe is quite simple: take a circuit, describe it in detail from a drivers' angle, throw in a few Brundle anecdotes of his racing around that circuit, mix in some of the circuit's atmosphere, perhaps add in a detailed analysis of a particular aspect of Grand Prix racing, such as driving in the wet or bumpy street circuits, and you have an excellent, informative book, all told in the uniquely Brundle style with a surprisingly large dollop of enthusiasm - jaded he is not!

Most of the world's current Grand Prix circuits are included in the chapters (but not the Nurburgring, Barcelona and recent newcomers) plus a couple of favourites from Martin's career, such as Le Mans, Brands Hatch, Adelaide, Rio and Detroit. Hamilton has soaked up Brundle's descriptions and then nudged him into a few anecdotes, no doubt helped by the research into his earlier book on Ken Tyrrell. But he has most cleverly preserved Brundle's way of talking - only the Norfolk accent is missing! You do have lots of Brundle-isms such as 'I nailed him' but then that's Martin.