With angling magazines being nothing more than advertising catalogues and some of the more recent book releases looking more like advertising features for fisheries and a collection of magazine stories or newspaper cuttings I was pondering what makes a good fly fishing book. I own four books on fly fishing that never leave my bedside and I've read umteen times. Hugh Falkus's two, Kingsmills 'A man may fish' and Norman Macleans 'A river runs through it'. So many books seem to me to be sound bites or technical exercises. Is an internet connection and a pair of brass nuts all that's required to hobble a book together and get it published ? Is this what's demanded by us the consumer ? Is this what's demanded by the publisher ? The books I've mentioned were all published well before the net was ever thought of, written by fly fishermen who wrote about the waters they fished and new intimately.

I don't think the internet can kill a good book written by a person who has great experience and knowledge of the subject they are writing about and is imparting all his knowledge to the person who has bought the book.The internet, especially a forum I suppose could be looked at as an extension of a good book a place where you can seek an answer to something that has not been covered in the book or a take on someone elses experience IMO.

Alan

To be honest with the onset of the Internet my beter half and I have never purchased so many books.
I believe that the Internet has bought books into peoples lives who would not normally go inside a book shop.
It has definatly made books more accessable IMHO.

I don't believe the Internet can kill a good book its just another medium to use.

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Itchy

Just coming dear...

DJ V- writing a book is not something which is easy, whatever you might suspect, and getting it published is even harder.I have done both and it was not a walk in the park.There is a market for decent fishing books but it is smaller than it used to be .I am not sure whether the net is a symptom or a cause ; but suspect that fewer people have the attention span needed to do justice to a well written book.

There is of course, and as always, the opposite hypothesis ... that the internet has encouraged and spawned a whole generation of people to write.

Whereas I could not bring myself to hail the majority of forum posts as 'writing' there are now a large number of very well written and beautifully illustrated websites and blogs - one shining example from Gareth Lewis ....

Fly Fishing in South Wales

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DJ V...you have picked just 4 books there, published over a 50 year period.

I'm sure that every year since 1960, when Kingsmill Moore's book first saw the light, offerings containing no more than sound bites and technical exercises have been published and deservedly sunk without trace. It's a bit like pop music, you remember the all time classics or those associated with good or bad personal memories, and filter out all the dross.

John Gierach's books will still be read with pleasure in 50 years time, and he was first published in the mid-1980s.

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Possibly because they are instantly forgettable!

Internet has enabled lots of writing talent to be seen as in Forums and the like. I believe that a lot of older books are also available to be read on line which may have been unobtainable before.

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[COLOR="Blue"]"A fish seen is a fish nearly caught"[/COLOR]

I don't think the internet will kill good book writing off. Furthermore if you go onto ebay or amazon you will see for as long as there have been fishermen there have been cr@p fishing books (by the bucketfull). We tend to look at older fishing books as great and yes there are a good few but there is a lot of dross also. JB

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not forgetting that the potential content in a new book is mostly all there in previous ones.

Very true. There is very little that comes along that is truely new most advances being an evolution of a long standing idea/method. That means you need a lot of filler for the rest of your book. If your eloquent or have a different perspective on fishing/life then that can result in an interesting read. If not then it is just another fishing book that will end up in the bargain bin with john wilson and another "fishing handbook".

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