Magazines can provide a quick fix but it is short lived. Because good fishing writers are rarer than hen's teeth these days. All the really good stuff like the best music has already been written. There are a handful of contemporary writers whose work is of the highest calibre but even they are in large part stuck with the disadvantage of having to improve upon what has already been said many times before. Angling has inspired a veritable avalanche of writing.
True gems are few and far between.
Following this line of thought I began to wonder which of my modest collection of forty or so fly fishing books I would least want to be without. In short, this is my personal list of favourite fly fishing books selected, quite obviously, from those read thus far - which, I might add, includes many which I do not own. A kind of Desert Island Fly Fishing Books. At this point I can well imagine perfectly understandable cries of 'and what makes him think I'm interested in his reading habits' - along with similar but far less charitable thoughts. Well, based on my own reactions to other people's lists of things in general I am hoping that the beginner will perhaps be guided toward at least some of the jewels in fly fishing's literary crown and that the more experienced will perhaps find some small satisfaction in having their own preferences reinforced or, better still - and more likely, delight in vehement disagreement.