I have TONS of books. I have everything from "the history of the flyers" to "chaos" and "fractal geometry" to "quantum theory" and all of stephen hawking's work. I also have tons of fly fishing books, and figured I'd share my recommendations:

First of all, I have almost all of Gierach's work. Amazing stuff. Get it. Get all of it. Do it now.
Here is an Amazon list of his work

Beyond that, I just gave a recommendation for this:
The Orvis Fly Tying Guide

Some other recommendations:
Tying Small Flies by Ed Engle

Trout Fishing In The Shenandoah National Park by Harry Murray. Amazon appears to be lacking this one, and it's kind of old, but gives good info on fishing the park. Thankfully, not much has changed in the years since it was written in this protected area.

I also recommend Meck's guide, to the ire of some of my flyfishing peers. It doesn't bother me, though. A worn out copy is always under the passenger seat of my car.


Thoughts? Recommendations?

"Mayflies" by Ted F.
Excellent, full-page pictures of every species of mayfly in every stage of life that hatches on the east coast in order or their arrival. Plus some fly recipies from local tiers (just ask old lefty).

Great book if you are interested into upclose realistic tying - even though I know you aren't.

I'm not too wild about doing my own realistic tying, but I am very interested in that of others. It's something I might want to get into when I have more time, for sure. I'll give it a peek.

Every once in a while amazon will have an online page by page flip through. But it's probably better to see up close in person at a fly shop or book store.

The realism aspect aspect I was talking about mostly deals with position and size of gills, as well as, body and leg color.
The patterns in the book aren't overly realistic where thay take more than 10 minutes to tie (at least after some practice).

jayL... I agree 100% on Geirach...his books are more tattered than any other books I own.

Two that you didn't mention...
Hatches and Ray Bergman's Trout.

I have a copy of Trout that was my grandfather's...Its a second addition from 1954 if my recollection is correct. That is one that I cherish.