Archery Books

Below is a list of books related to the field of archery. Everything you see below I have either read personally, or know someone who has read it and comes highly recommended. I’m not providing detailed reviews here, just a list with a quick note detailing what each book is about. If there is enough interest, I will be happy to write more detailed reviews of each copy.

“Archery” – by USA Archery.

Written and published by members USAA, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the sport, and it was written by some of the world’s top archery coaches. This book is for people who want to improve their accuracy, body alignment & stance, and become all-around better shooters. Among the topics covered are:

• Becoming a competitive archer
• Equipment and Tuning
• Developing and improving your shot sequence
• Recurve shooting: setting up, drawing, completing the shot
• Compound shooting
• Nutrition and physical training for optimal shooting performance

The book is available in both paperback format as well as a digital version for Kindle e-book readers. It was published on December 14th 2012 and totals 232 pages. Take a look inside this book.

“Archery Fundamentals” – by Human Kinetics.

Published by Human Kinetics and written by Douglas Engh, this is another great great book and goes over, as the name suggests, all the fundamentals of archery. It will help you with the following:

• Stringing the bow, anchoring, proper grip, aiming and releasing
• Equipment maintenance
• Detailed breakdown of the bow
• Detailed breakdown of the arrows
• Achieving tight groups
• Bow accessories and how to use them
• Tuning and repair
• Competition

Comes in both paperback and Kindle e-book reader editions. The book was published on August 19th 2004 and totals 144 pages. Take a look inside this book.

“Beginners Guide to Traditional Archery” – by Brian J. Sorrells.

This one focuses equally strong on both target practice as well as hunting with traditional bows, and has a great section to help you improve your instinctive shooting skills. Some of the topics covered include:

• Choosing the right equipment
• Tuning your bow
• Shooting form
• Basic and advanced accuracy exercises
• How to practice instinctive bowhunting

Also available as a paperback or a Kindle edition. Published in July 15th 2004 and totals 112 pages. Take a look inside this book.

“Archery Anatomy” – by Ray Axford

This book covers somewhat more advanced topics than the previously mentioned ones. It focuses almost exclusively on the study of archery anatomy, meaning the exact muscles, joints and tendons that are required to properly shoot a bow and how to bring all of them into perfect harmony. While this book will mostly benefit the more experienced shooters, beginners will likely find it quite fun to read and will definitely learn a thing or two in the process. Some of the included chapters:

• Joints, joint capsules and tendons, range of movement
• Muscles
• Movement of arm, upper arm, shoulders, shoulder girdle
• Back muscles
• Body type
• Size and gender
• Bow anatomy; limb construction and operation, stress distribution and dynamic balance
• Force/draw graph
• Draw force line
• Inherent instability / static stability of the bow
• Head, skull, neck, face angles
• Horizontal, vertical eye movement
• Relationship of the eye to the head turn

And much more. You can get it as paperback or Kindle. The book is from 1996 however our anatomy has not changed since then so it’s perfectly valid today 🙂 164 pages total. Take a look inside this book.

“Shooting With Proper Back Tension” – by Larry Wise

This book focuses heavily on the proper use of your back spine and entire skeleton for executing a proper shot. It basically teaches you how to use your bones rather than your muscles to properly draw and release an arrow, helping you take strength (as it is generally understood) out of the equation. Despite being a bit scientific, it is really easy to read even by a beginner. This book was written for compound shooters, although traditional archers will learn a lot from it as well. Topics covered include:

• Proper skeletal alignment
• Form
• Shooting psychology
• Involvement of specific muscles
• Proper release
• Aiming

Published on April 30th 2004, total of 144 pages. Available in paperback and Kindle editions. See reader reviews of this book.

Summary

Ths is it for now! I hope you find some of these useful, and I will be updating this list whenever I think of something that is worthy of inclusion. Take care and happy shooting.