But for everybody else – readers, rather than investors – these guys, and other publishing houses like them, are a blessing. This independent American company is one of several to have popped up over the past few years that specialises in producing budget-friendly reissues books that are otherwise only ever seen for sale accompanied by descriptions like 'some minor yellowing; small tear on rear of dust jacket'.

One book to have been given the Lazarus treatment is William F. Nolan's great biography of Phil Hill, which first hit the shelves in 1962. Actually, this reissued edition has been kicking around for some time as well, having first hit the shelves in 1996, but what the hell – we'd waited 34 years to review it, so another seven weren't going to hurt, right?

Put simply, this book is worth getting. It was a good read in its original form, and the inclusion of a few thousand extra words about what Phil has been up to in the years since he helped put the US on the Formula One map just makes it all the better.

Nolan, who wrote several motorsport books in the 1960s and 1970s (and is the darling of geeks worldwide as the author of the novel Logan's Run, which was later made into a Hollywood sci-fi classic), interviewed the highly-eloquent Hill at great length while preparing this book. The results of hours of tape are reproduced in solid chunks throughout the text, effectively allowing the 1961 champion to do the talking. It's about as close to an autobiography as you can get without having Phil actually sit down at a typewriter, and a good example of a biographer playing the narrator role to perfection.

It's rare that an author manages so perfectly to act as a conduit between the subject and the audience. And the results are gripping stuff, even to a reader who wasn't born until 13 years after Hill earned his title.

This leads to one particular factor that sets this book apart from more recent books written retrospectively – its sense of immediacy. Certainly, there would be a lot to gain from sitting down with Hill tomorrow and getting his thoughts on his F1 career from a distance of four decades, but it's impossible to recapture the sense of the 'now' that pervades this book. This gives the whole thing a new lease of life that contemporary titles will always struggle to match.

Nolan's job was made that bit easier in this case by the fact that he had some great material to work with. Hill is a highly intelligent, thoughtful and expressive speaker, and when you consider the environment in which he won his title – the shocking ease with which an accident could prove fatal; the special type of politics that Enzo Ferrari was so adept at; the not-insignificant fact that Hill was an American champion at a time when the US cared even less about Grand Prix racing than they do now; it all makes for a potent combination.

There are any number of passages that would have been worth reproducing here, both as examples of the books flavour and for their merit as stand-alone snapshots of a remarkable era. This one, from late in the book, ended up getting the nod because in showing the response of Wolfgang Von Trips's mother to his fatal accident, it reveals an aspect to racing's sadder side that we don't often see:

"Now, ever since leaving Italy I'd had a pain, a kind of stitch in my side. I knew it was purely psychosomatic; it told me that I was tense, that I must relax. Well, that pain began to ease when I talked to Frau Trips. She was composed. She even scolded me gently for not accompanying her to the Salzburg Music Festival as I had promised to do earlier in the season. I sensed, as we spoke, that she did not condemn racing. I knew that of course she was terribly hurt at the loss of her only son, but he had freely chosen a dangerous career and now that he was gone she accepted the fact like a Spartan mother. I left the castle without pain, strangely relaxed for the first time in days." (p. 206)

There is a tinge of romanticism that betrays the fact that this book is from another age (you couldn't get away with ending a book "from the smoke of motorized battle across many continents just four words tell the story: PHIL HILL WORLD CHAMPION" anymore), but in terms of sheer integrity, this volume is just about flawless. Hunt it down.

As an aside, the same publisher has more recently re-released another vintage Nolan title. 'Barney Oldfield: The Life and Times of America's Legendary Speed King', was also originally published in 1961 before being given the 'revised and updated' treatment last year.

The subject matter may be of more select appeal to F1 enthusiasts than the Hill title, but as a vivid portrait of a highly colourful racing superstar from the early 1900s – a period of racing that is almost completely foreign to this particular scribe – it is fascinating stuff.