It's time for holiday gift shopping.

Just in case your significant other won't buy you the titanium frame Tour Easy ($5,200) that you want, or even the standard model ($1,999), here are some lower priced alternatives you might suggest. Of course, they involve reading, but you can do it in a reclining position during the months when it's too cold to go riding.

All of these books were published in 2003 or this year:

Atomic Zombie's Bicycle Builders Bonanza, by Brad Graham and Kathy McGowan, 388 pages, McGraw Hill, $24.95.

Bicycling Science, third edition, by David Gordon Wilson, with contributions by Jim Papadopoulos, 477 pages, The MIT Press, $22.95.

The Recumbent Bicycle, second (English language) edition, by Gunnar Fehlau, 187 pages, Out Your Backdoor Press, $20.

Bicycle Design, second edition, by Mike Burrows, 176 pages, Pedal Press, $26.95.

All four books can be ordered from Amazon.com, or presumably by your local book store. However, when I checked Amazon in mid-November, it only had the first edition of Bicycle Design.

The Recumbent Bicycle can be directly ordered from the publisher, Jeff Potter, Out Your Outdoor Press, 4686 Meridian Road, Williamston MI 48895; phone 800-763-6923, or online at OutYourBackdoor.com. The $20 price includes shipping and handling. (Another Michigan connection: the book was printed in Grand Rapids.)

Atomic Zombie's Bicycle Builders Bonanza is for anyone who likes weird bikes, and I'm not talking about just recumbents.

Brad Graham shows and tells how to build three designs of choppers, a solo and tandem two-wheels-in-front upright tricycle, two high bikes (the highest being the Skycycle, which puts the rider 10 feet up in the air), an upright fat tire tandem, a pedaled "trailer" for kids (it attaches to and is pulled by a regular bike), two unicycles (one pedaled in a sort-of recumbent position), three recumbents, and two "unclassified rolling objects" (one with two wheels and one with three).

Graham built all 16 using simple hand tools, an electric drill, welder and grinder. He built them in his unheated garage, including during winter, and he lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the northern shore of Lake Superior.

Graham starts with the basics, even how to build a workbench. There's discussion of where to find old bikes to cut up (all of Graham's cycles use parts from old bikes, including cut-up frames), taking bikes apart, welding techniques, design and painting.

Presumably most people reading this are interested in recumbents. Graham's four recumbent designs in the book are conversion of a child's 20-inch wheel mountain bike into a short wheelbase recumbent recumbent; the Coyote, which uses 27-inch/700c wheels and front wheel drive (the rider is almost flat on his back, with the bottom bracket probably 24 inches higher), a long-wheelbase low racer; and a single front wheel drive low-rider tricycle, which is intended mostly for doing stunts.

Bicycle Design -- Author Mike Burrows is well-known in HPV circles as the designer of the Windwheetah recumbent tricycle, as well as many upright and recumbent cycles. Many feature wheels supported on only one side. Burrows also is known for his strong opinions.

Topics include handling, materials, aerodynamics, wheels, tires, transmissions, suspension, brakes, "Monoblades and Cantilever Wheels: Why standing on one leg makes sense," and "awful cycling inventions." Bicycle Design was published in 2000. Recumbents were mentioned in the first edition, but there wasn't any specific discussion of them. Burrows has rectified that in the new second edition, with the addition of a 14-page chapter on recumbents. Also, many photos in the 16-page color section have been changed. (I haven't seen the second edition; the information about it comes from the September issue of the British magazine, VeloVision.)

Bicycling Science -- The first edition, by David Gordon Wilson and Frank Rowland Whitt, was published in 1974. The second in 1982. The third this year.

As the title suggests, Bicycling Science isn't light reading, and unless you're an engineer (or think like an engineer), some of it will be over your head.

There are chapters on the history of bicycling, human power generation, "how bicyclists keep cool," aerodynamics, tires, bearings, braking, steering and balancing, power transmission, materials, unusual human powered vehicles and "human powered vehicles in the future." The chapter devoted to unusual HPVs includes lawn mowers, "snow removal devices," speed machines, rail cycles, utility cycles and even electric-assist.

Even if you're a non-technical person, like me, there are lots of interesting tidbits in Bicycling Science, even if you never read it cover to cover (like me).

The author of The Recumbent Bicycle, Gunnar Fehlau, is German and his book was first published in Germany under the title, Das Liegerad, in 1996. All us English-speaking recumbent enthusiasts owe a big thanks to Jeff Potter of Out Your Backdoor Press in Williamston (an occasional HPV racer) for getting the book translated (by Jasmin Fischer) into English and printed. The first English language edition was published in 2000; the second edition in 2003.

There is one complaint about the book, first expressed by others, that Fehlau chose to only write about two-wheel recumbents. There's only the briefest of mention of three-wheelers.

Also keep in mind this book is written from a European perspective, in 1996. So if you want to read about all the latest production recumbents, you won't.

But there's much on history, racing, everyday use, aerodynamics and handling, design basics, building your own (including do-it-yourself fairings) and references.

The second edition is updated with many photos that weren't in the first edition, including some current production recumbents and racing HPVs and some updated information. Photo quality is improved over the first edition. Even if you have the first edition, it's worth getting the second.