What we offer

This website details our wide range of specialist book publications that Mortons Media publish.

We create these books by drawing upon the wealth of experience, skill and insight that only a major magazine publisher can offer - backed up by Europe's largest motorcycle image archive.

• Looking for a great gift? Our books start from just £3.50 including p&p!

Latest news

The New Motorcyclist Handbook

132 Pages | Written by Steve Rose | £5.49

‘New Motorcyclist’s Handbook’ is a comprehensive 132 page full colour, perfect bound ‘bookazine’, it is a unique, definitive guide to your first year as a motorcyclist. Written and compiled by Steve Rose, Mortons motorcycle group editor and previously editor of RiDE magazine. Steve includes features looking at what you need to know about motorcycles - buying advice, motorcycle maintenance, how to ride one safely, what to wear and the test itself. All the ins and outs clearly explained in one publication. Features include:

• What has biking ever done for us? — riders (ordinary and celebrity) talk about the joys, thrills and freedom that only motorcycling gives
• Motorbikes for dummies — a quick run through the types of bikes and what they mostly do well and not so well
• How to ride a motorbike — all the controls, what they do, how to use them best
• The kit needed — honest down to earth, real world advice on the clothing available
• Getting ready for the test, what you'll be asked to do and how to do it properly

• IN STOCK NOW - ORDER ON-LINE, FREE P&P > >>

Best of Scootering Magazine - the Eighties

132 Pages | Written by Gary Thomas | £5.49

It's the perfect gift for anyone interested in scooters, and written by people who really know what they're on about. In the first of a series of bookazines, we celebrate the best of the early days of Scootering magazine, reproducing some of the greatest features, adverts, road tests and letters from the dawn of the magazine and covering the period 1985-1989.

Scootering has been at the heart of the scooter scene for almost 27 years. As the world's number one magazine for the hobby, over the years it has been the first port of call for scooterists both young and old. Since starting out in 1985, the title has seen the best scooters on the planet, been to the best events, biggest rallies and featured the best reviews... all of which have helped make it the scene we have and enjoy today. With old features and adverts hand picked by Gary Thomas, a part of Scootering since 1992, this is the ideal gift and perfect read for all fans.

IN STOCK NOW - ORDER ON-LINE, FREE P&P >

World's Fastest Steam Railway

132 Pages | Written by Robin Jones | £7.99

The bookazine tells the story of the East Coast Main Line, the great British trunk route which links London king’s Cross to Leeds and Edinburgh, and which produced the fastest steam locomotives in the world. It includes the exploits of Flying Scotsman, the world’s most famous steam locomotive, and Mallard, which set an all-time steam locomotive record of 126mph on Stoke Bank in Lincolnshire.

The story starts before the dawn of railways, when stagecoaches took four days to link the two capitals, running along the Great North Road what is now the old A1, and where travellers had to run the risk of being robbed by highwaymen like Dick Turpin. It looks at the coming together of the East Coast rail route section by section, the first being built from Edinburgh into England, and requiring the demolition of one of Britain’s great historic fortresses in the process. Illustrated with classic scenes from several of Britain’s top railway photographers.

IN STOCK NOW - ORDER ON-LINE, FREE P&P >

Classic Roadtests Revisited - 1969-1983

132 Pages | Edited by Steve Rose | £6.99

The Motor Industry Research Association files (MIRA)

The 1970s were a golden age for motorcycling. A new wave of high performance Japanese machines broke new ground in speed and handling with every year that passed. Two stroke 250s with performance to beat a 500cc British twin from just ten years earlier. Four cylinder, race developed superbikes that left any other vehicle standing.
This book is a fascinating document of that time. A collection of stories written under the title Mira Files, by John Nutting – one of a handful of road testers who had the privilege to ride every bike of that marvellous era. The fascination comes because these are the opinions of the time, not rose tinted, hindsight by someone who never had the context to go with the ride. The Mira files takes its name from the Motor Industry Research Association’s Nuneaton test track where all the machines of the day were put through their paces. They have been a mainstay of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics magazine for the last ten years; this book brings a selection of them together for your enjoyment.

Tested inside ■ Honda cb750 ■ Bimota sb2 ■ Suzuki 1000g and bmW r100t ■ Kawasaki Z1-rtc ■ Honda cb750f/Suzuki gsX750/Kawasaki Z750 ■ Yamaha rd250/400 ■ Laverda Jota ■ Kawasaki Z1 ■ Honda 400/4 ■ Kawasaki Z650 ■ Suzuki gt750 ■ Honda cbX550/ Kawasaki gpZ550 ■ Suzuki gt380/550 ■ Yamaha Xs1100 ■ Yamaha Xt500/sr500 ■ Yamaha rd350 ypvs ■ Suzuki gsX1100 ■ Honda cbX1000 ■ Suzuki gs750 ■ Yamaha rd250lc

In stock • £6.99

Rail Express - Modeller's Guide

132 Pages | In Production - Gareth Bayer | £8.99

Each month within Rail Express - Rail Express Modeller features the latest models and upcoming designs for all railway modeller fans.
Part of this section is the highly detailed Research / Formation section - technical drawings detailing the various combinations of Locomotive, Vehicles and Train - along with the date seen/used.

This new bookazine will feature the very best formations seen in Rail Express - and much more.

Due for release Spring 2012

British Leyland

132 Pages | Written by Stephen Pullen | £6.99

During the 1960s vehicle makers all over the world were looking to expand and amalgamate as at the time it was considered the only way they could survive. As a major manufacturing nation Britain at the time had a large number of makers of all kinds of vehicles and gradually many of them joined together to form two large companies. The first of these was the Leyland Motor Corporation which was principally involved with the manufacture of commercial vehicles although they had also recently diversified into cars.
The other major concern was British Motor Holdings, owners of some of Britain's iconic car makes including Austin, Morris, Wolseley and Riley to name but a few. With size meaning strength, and with government encouragement, these two companies merged in 1968 to form the British Leyland Motor Corporation, one of the largest vehicle making firms in the world.

Written by Heritage Commercials editor, Stephen Pullen, this publication looks at the histories of many of the companies that found themselves in this massive organisation, together with some of the products that they produced, the problems they faced and what happened to them in the end.
Makes covered include Jaguar, Vanden Plas, Rover, Triumph, Mini, Alvis, AEC, Albion, Scammell etc, while it also looks at some of BL's more unusual products including gas turbines, miltary tanks, trains and fridges.

BEECHING - 50 Years of the axeman

132 Pages | Written by Robin Jones | £6.99

Described as the most hated civil servant in Britain, it was half a century ago that Dr Richard Beeching was appointed as chairman of British Railways with one key directive - to cut the soaring losses. The 1950s had seen the start of a mass shift from public to private transport, as lorries, cars, buses and motorbikes replaced trains as Britain’s most popular means of travel.

So often pilloried by the press and public for closing numerous picturesque and romantic country branch lines, leaving even many large towns cut off from the railway network, Beeching might also be seen as merely streamlining a process that was already underway.

Back in the early Sixties, there were many who thought that not only were the days of steam locomotives numbered, but those of railways too, as mankind, leaping towards the first lunar landings, looked toward hovercraft and hovertrains as the transport of the future.

The Scrapbook Series 4: AJS / Matchless

132 Pages | Written by James Robinson | £7.99

Scrapbook Series: AJS/Matchless

At its peak Associated Motor Cycle (AMC), the proprietor of AJS and Matchless (among others) was making 96 motorcycles a day, with 1500 people employed. By any standards, that’s a big player in the industry. Though AMC did of course include other names – James, Francis-Barnett and for a time the likes of Norton and Sunbeam – it is AJS and Matchless which first come to mind when ‘AMC’ is mentioned to most enthusiasts.

This 4th book in the Scrapbook Series marks another of the giants in motorcycle history. Using images from the Mortons Archive - home of over 4 million motorcycle images dating back to the very beginnings of motorcycle use. This latest book is a must-have for AJS and Matchless fans, with never before published imagery alongside a dateline of the AMC company.

In stock • £7.99