The book in question is the recently published title penned by Gary Inman ‘How To Build A Motorcycle’. Now Gary is not new to the motorcycle game, or to writing, indeed it is he who manages to wrestle Guy Martin’s slightly chaotic life into readable book form, but this book is a bit of a disappointment.
Basically it’s a coffee table book, very nicely illustrated, easy to read and not too taxing on the brain. And that’s the problem, if you were looking for a book to help you with the practicalities of actually, physically building a motorbike, this really isn’t the book for you. My best description of it is that it’s a beautifully illustrated glossary of motorcycle building terms.
 The chapter list is promising: Tools and Skills, Bodywork and Cosmetics, Frame and Suspension, Tyres, Wheels and Brakes, Engine, Electrics etc. But there’s very little meat in the chapters and it’s very light on engineering content. For example, the subject of welding gets one page. From it you will learn little more than what the acronyms TIG, MIG etc. mean.
If you already have some bike building / maintenance experience, have spent some time on the internet looking up these subjects, or have read specialist books on welding, metal forming, suspension set-up etc. you're unlikely to find new material in this book.
This book has it’s place. A newbie could read and understand it and if you have no previous bike building experience, you'd certainly learn the lingo. You'd be able to talk-the-talk at the local bike meet, but whether it'd give you the skills to back that up in the workshop is an entirely different matter. It’s bike building simplified, and while it may encourage people to start a project, when they really get down to the nitty gritty, it probably isn’t going to help them finish it.
Currently £12.99 on Amazon.