What fish are you going to be chasing?

If it's trout, I'd agree with Norman, Charlie Craven's book has set the new standard. He goes into incredible detail, excellent photos and there's a lot of great tips for beginner and intermediate fly tyers. If you want to get a feel for the kind of detail he goes into, check out his website www.charliesflybox.com and browse through some of the fly tutorials.

For many years Skip Morris's book "Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple" and the Peter Gathercole's "50 Fail Safe Flies" were "the standards", with more of an emphasis on traditional patterns.

As tlerm mentioned there are 2 Benchside books.

"The Benchside Intro to Tying" has a unique format with pages cut in half. Pattern ingredients on the top half of the book and instructions for techniques on the bottom half and the idea is that you can flip the bottom half to see how to do different fly tying techniques-- in theory it sounds good. In practice it gets a little cumbersome.

"The Benchside Reference" is a great resource for intermediate and advanced tyers. It doesn't cover patterns, but goes into detail on how to do specific techniques-- so 30 different ways to dub a body, how to make a dubbing brush, several ways to split dry fly tails, how to marry a wet fly wing, etc.

And David Hughes has some great books including "Essential Trout Flies" and "Trout Flies" (a larger, more expensive book that "Essential" is excerpted from) that would be great for an intermediate tyer that has mastered the basics. It assumes you know how to do stuff like tie on, whip finish, dub thread and secure materials in a pinch loop etc, and uses that knowledge to walk you through tying a variety of different "styles" of flies with suggested dressings and "how to" step by steps for tying. It's a great resource, and he's an excellent writer.

If you're chasing other stuff there are other beginner/intermediate books with a focus on tying bass panfish or saltwater flies etc.

Good luck.

mark