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A Race with Love and Death
- The Story of Richard Seaman
- Narrated by: Richard Williams
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
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A Race with Love and Death
Narrated by:
Richard Williams
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Publisher's Summary
'A tragic age and a tragic character, both seemingly compelled to destroy themselves...a chilling reminder of how little control we have over our fates' Damon Hill
'One of the greatest motor racing stories' Nick Mason
'Timely, vivid and enthralling … it’s unputdownable’ Miranda Seymour, author of The Bugatti Queen
Dick Seaman was the archetypal dashing motorsport hero of the 1930s, the first Englishman to win a race for Mercedes-Benz and the last Grand Prix driver to die at the wheel before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Award-winning author Richard Williams reveals the remarkable but now forgotten story of a driver whose battles against the leading figures of motor racing's golden age inspired the post-war generation of British champions. The son of wealthy parents, educated at Rugby and Cambridge, Seaman grew up in a privileged world of house parties, jazz and fast cars. But motor racing was no mere hobby: it became such an obsession that he dropped out of university to pursue his ambitions, squeezing money out of his parents to buy better cars. When he was offered a contract with the world-beating, state-sponsored Mercedes team in 1937, he signed up despite the growing political tensions between Britain and Germany. A year later, he celebrated victory in the German Grand Prix with the beautiful 18-year-old daughter of the founder of BMW. Their wedding that summer would force a split with his family, a costly rift that had not been closed six months later when he crashed in the rain while leading at Spa, dying with his divided loyalties seemingly unresolved. He was just 26 years old.
A Race with Love and Death is a gripping tale of speed, romance and tragedy. Set in an era of rising tensions, where the urge to live each moment to the full never seemed more important, it is a richly evocative story that grips from first to last.
'One of the greatest motor racing stories' Nick Mason
'Timely, vivid and enthralling … it’s unputdownable’ Miranda Seymour, author of The Bugatti Queen
Dick Seaman was the archetypal dashing motorsport hero of the 1930s, the first Englishman to win a race for Mercedes-Benz and the last Grand Prix driver to die at the wheel before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Award-winning author Richard Williams reveals the remarkable but now forgotten story of a driver whose battles against the leading figures of motor racing's golden age inspired the post-war generation of British champions. The son of wealthy parents, educated at Rugby and Cambridge, Seaman grew up in a privileged world of house parties, jazz and fast cars. But motor racing was no mere hobby: it became such an obsession that he dropped out of university to pursue his ambitions, squeezing money out of his parents to buy better cars. When he was offered a contract with the world-beating, state-sponsored Mercedes team in 1937, he signed up despite the growing political tensions between Britain and Germany. A year later, he celebrated victory in the German Grand Prix with the beautiful 18-year-old daughter of the founder of BMW. Their wedding that summer would force a split with his family, a costly rift that had not been closed six months later when he crashed in the rain while leading at Spa, dying with his divided loyalties seemingly unresolved. He was just 26 years old.
A Race with Love and Death is a gripping tale of speed, romance and tragedy. Set in an era of rising tensions, where the urge to live each moment to the full never seemed more important, it is a richly evocative story that grips from first to last.
©2020 Richard Williams (P)2020 Simon & Schuster UK.
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What the critics say
'Timely, vivid and enthralling in its close-up view of a world of heroes, Richard Williams’ splendid book corrects the many myths that cling to Dick Seaman’s name. Was he buried sitting upright in the car in which he died? Did his overbearing English mother light up the family’s ancestral home to guide Nazi pilots through the night? Williams has found a subject worthy of his rare combination of technical knowledge with compelling story-telling. It’s unputdownable.' (Miranda Seymour)
'One of the greatest motor racing stories, about one of the greatest but least celebrated British drivers from an era that produced perhaps the most awesome - certainly the most fearsome - racing cars of all time, the original Silver Arrows.' (Nick Mason)
'A fascinating story...as you'd expect from one of the finest sports writers of our lifetime, Williams advances our understanding of the subject by elegantly weaving a narrative that combines the Boy's Own derring-do of a between-the-wars hero with the suffocatingly stuffy expectations of British society...Gives you all the detail a purist would want from a racing biography, but it's also an easy-to-read yet fascinating social documentary of the era. (Marcus Simmons)
'A tragic age and a tragic character, both seemingly compelled to destroy themselves...a chilling reminder of how little control we have over our fates' (Damon Hill)
What listeners say about A Race with Love and Death
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- James Greavette
- 2020-05-05
Excellent.
A great look at a fascinating period in motor sports. The story is well written and the narration is excellent.
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