As automaker General Motors filed for bankruptcy this morning, one GalleyCat editor who grew up in Michigan compiled a list of the top-selling GM books. According to Amazon, William Holstein’s timely February 2009 release, “Why GM Matters: Inside the Race to Transform an American Icon,” is the current top-seller about the corporation.
The book is followed by a reprint of the 1965 business memoir: “My Years with General Motors,” by Alfred Sloan. This business title was so popular over the years that it spawned another title, “A Ghost’s Memoir: The Making of Alfred P. Sloan’s ‘My Years with General Motors'” by John McDonald.
Finally, the list includes the classic 1992 assembly-line memoir, “Rivethead” by Ben Hamper. Here’s an excerpt: “I was seven years old the first time I ever set foot inside an automobile factory. The occasion was Family Night at the old Fisher Body plant in Flint where my father worked the second shift … The noise was very close to intolerable. The heat was one complete bastard. Little wonder the old man’s socks always smelled like liverwurst bleached for a week in the desert sun.”