OK, now we're on a topic that I find much more interesting than discussing magazines that are filled with increasingly formulaic "Five Best Places..." or "Ten Best Flies..." articles. (Sorry, just a PPP--Personal Pet Peeve.) Here is a very incomplete list of a few of my American favorites:
General-
A. J. McClane's The Practical Fly Fisherman. Perhaps my favorite fly-fishing book of all time. McClane was my hero when I was learning to fly fish (still is).
Dan Holland's The Trout Fisherman's Bible. A sentimental favorite, I cut my fly-fishing teeth on this excellent volume from the old Doubleday sportsmen's "Bible" series.
Swisher & Richard's Selective Trout. Wiggle nymphs, anyone? It was revolutionary in the way that it exposed anglers/tiers to "new" approaches to old problems.
Schwiebert's Nymphs. I love the original for it's insights, but even more for the chapters on the history of nymph fishing and the beautiful vignettes that introduce each chapter.
Fly Tying-
George Harvey's A Simplified Course in Fly Tying. Another sentimental favorite, Harvey's little pamphlet taught the basics to many thousands of "self-taught" novices (like me).
Poul Jorgenson's Modern Fly Dressings for the Practical Angler. Along with his earlier Dressing Flies for Fresh and Salt Water, Jorgenson's books helped me to move beyond the basics that I learned from Harvey's pamphlet.
Chauncy Lively's fly-tying articles in the old Pennsylvania Angler. OK, they were not books, but I just had to mention Lively. More than any other tier, he influenced the way I tie today. Talk about being ahead of your time, he was amazing and remains underappreciated.
Dry-Fly Fishing-
George LaBranche's The Dry Fly and Fast Water. Superb insights from one of the very best fly fishers of his day. The chapter on reading the stream stands alongside Rosenbauer's excellent Reading Trout Streams as some of the best words ever written on the subject.
Vince Marinaro's A Modern Dry-Fly Code. Marinaro's classic is the perfect counterpoint to LaBranche--one for freestone anglers and the other for limestoners. As a kid growing up in the Cumberland Valley, "The Code" was the book for dry-fly guys.
Wet-Fly Fishing-
Jim Leisenring's The Art of Tying the Wet Fly. Before WWII, "Big Jim" was the master wet-fly fisherman on my old homewaters, the Brodheads. The continuing interest in all those simple and deadly soft-hackles and "flymphs" owes much to him.
Angler's Entomologies-
Caucci and Nastasi's Hatches. What can I say? This book raised the bar for angler's entomologies and continues to compare favorably with most that have been published since.
Gary LaFontaine's Caddisflies. Again, what can I say? Gary was a true innovator, and his insights changed the way most anglers fish caddisflies today.
Thomas Ames' Hatch Guide for New England Streams. Including this (relatively new) book with the others is the highest praise. Despite its "New England" title, I think it is the best (and most accurate) overall guide to Eastern hatches.
History-
Preston Jennings' A Book of Trout Flies. The roots of classics like Schwiebert's Matching the Hatch and Flick's Streamside Guide to Naturals and Their Imitations can be found in Jennings. Like Leisenring and Schwiebert, Jennings frequented the Brodheads, so I feel a particular connection to the information in this book.
Ralf Coykendall's The Golden Age of Fly-Fishing. Coykendall compiled this collection of articles from the old magazine The Sportsman (1927-1937). It's filled with the heady air of yesteryear, and, WOW, could those guys write!
I know that's a long list, but it's not nearly as long as the list of what I left out. I look forward to seeing other's "favs."