My favorite book, even if you don't have a VW, is John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot".

My favorite book, even if you don't have a VW, is John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot". It is great because it was written for someone with no mechanical experience, it assumes no specific knowledge, it is geared towards an older cars (air cooled VWs) that are much simpler than modern cars so you aren't thrown into the deep end, and is very funny and well written. My favorite line from the book was something like "we'd have far less accidents if we were all strapped to the front of our cars like an aztec sacrifice." Which, while probably not the best approach to safety, has a kernel of truth that things that make us feel same may not make us safer, because they make us more willing to take risks. The book begins with a great section on the theory of all the parts of the car from the 4 stroke engine to the differential to the brakes--how they work and why they're needed.