For 2 stroke fans there is no substitute for Gordon Jennings' "Two Stroke Tuners Handbook" but there are some others to have as well.

"Two Stroke Performance Engine Design and Tuning" by Cesare Bossaglia, from Italy. This book has some surprising stuff like a flat 6 rotary valved race car motor and mentions of motors very familiar to us (Mercs & Königs!)


"Two Stroke Performance Tuning" by A. Graham Bell ... deals with mostly motorcycle engines but has some stuff like combined reed & piston port intake (3rd porting) that you won't find elsewhere.

"Design and Simulation of Two Stroke Engines" by Gordon P. Blair. Actually a college text book.

MZ by Mick Walker ... OK its a motorcycle book ... but its about the company that invented the expansion chamber and coupled it to rotary valve intake to make the first truly high performance 2 stroke racing motors back in the mid/late 1950's

The Bosch Automotive Handbook. An engineer's reference book put out by Bosch. Stuff about vehicles and motors you thought you'd have to take 3 years of college to just figure out where to look it up. Its in here.

"The Secrets of Tunnel Boat Design" by Jim Russell. Need to figure out how much drag your lower unit is making at 80 mph? How much lift your hull has at different angles of attack? This is the boat equivalent of the Two Stroke Tuners Handbook. Just as the Two Stroke Tuners Handbook is based on motorcycle engines but much of it applies to all high performance 2 strokes, same for Jim's Tunnel Hull book ... much of it also directly applies to hydros and V bottoms.