"Nottingham Trolleybuses" by David Bowler. Not much character development but by God you get to learn about Nottingham trolleybuses!

"Tom Rolt and the Cressy years" by Ian Mackersey. Excellent little book. Tom (LTC Rolt) was an engineer and visionary who bought and converted an old narrowboat called "Cressy" in 1939 and navigated it round the English canals with his then wife Angela. Hardly anybody did this at the time, of course. He hoped to write for a living so of naturally was extremely poor for many years. He eventually got "Narrow Boat" published and it's never been out of print since - he wrote about 40 books in the end. Remarried, settled in Gloucestershire, two children, died at 64. Honourable member of the Awkward Squad. Can't really begin to explain what an important (and lovable) man he was.