{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1496242289?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"1496242289","authors":["Fred Haefele"],"book_id":"9781496242280","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/the-essential-book-of-pickup-trucks-9781496242280","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781496242280.jpg?v=690e4e71d28f2d50","description":"Of the sixty million pickups on U.S. highways today, just one in eight was bought for work purposes. The remaining fifty-four million are what truck dealers call “lifestyle purchases.” Does the pickup impulse spring from some deep, organic longing? For agrarian roots, for simpler times, for a driving experience larger than life? The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks is a memoir about the complex role pickups have played in Fred Haefele’s life and in American culture at large. Growing up near the GM truck plant in Flint, Michigan, young Haefele was delighted by these centaur-like vehicles. In his adult life as an arborist, teacher, and father, pickups bore him through hard times and disaster, high adventure, triumph, and love. Through his tenure with twelve trucks, Haefele recounts his experiences with tree climbing and academia, masculinity and motor culture. For Haefele, pickup trucks hold a unique place in the American psyche—equal parts fantasy steed and dray horse, they’re avatars of the American spirit. The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks is, like his trucks, uniquely free-spirited: love story, blue-collar writer’s tale, and motor-head memoir.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781496242280","publication_date":"20250501","publisher":"Bison Books","slug":"the-essential-book-of-pickup-trucks","subtitle":"","title":"The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"TRA001150","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Trucks & Heavy Vehicles","score":0.7345,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TEC009090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Automotive Engineering","score":0.7166,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRA001050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Automotive History","score":0.7123,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"TRA001150","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Trucks & Heavy Vehicles","score":0.7345,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TEC009090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Automotive Engineering","score":0.7166,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRA001050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Automotive History","score":0.7123,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"BIO000000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Biography & Memoir","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"TRA001150","confidence_band":"high","label":"Trucks & Heavy Vehicles","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"TRV010000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Travel Writing","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Trucks & Heavy Vehicles","score":0.7345,"slug":"trucks-heavy-vehicles"},{"label":"Automotive Engineering","score":0.7166,"slug":"automotive-engineering"},{"label":"Automotive History","score":0.7123,"slug":"automotive-history"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in memoirs about pickup trucks and American culture","Readers drawn to stories linking motor culture, masculinity, tree climbing, and academia"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Earl Swift"],"book_id":"9780062282682","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062282682.jpg?v=d2ec44b5d940d337","score":0.6975,"title":"Auto Biography","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780062282682"},{"authors":["Peter J. 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