Kite BooksPower, Chinese, Stunt and Box Kite Books For SaleWhere's a great place to find kite books? Amazon of course! My Best Kite is proud to be associated with this huge online book-store. I have hand-picked a number of publications under 4 categories, for your convenience. Since these books are generally fairly specific about the 4 kite types, there aren't a huge number of titles in each category. This way, I hope you can fairly quickly find something of interest. Here's the links to a small shop-front for each category... In the next section down below, I've made a few general comments on each selection of books. The Power Kite BooksPower kiting is strongly tied to sports and sports shops, and it's quite unusual for someone to design or make their own kite. The range is huge, and a lot of money changes hands around the world for related gear. Since these kites have high value, there is a big second-hand market too. None of these books are specifically on making power kites or using them for recreation in the same way as a diamond or sled. The emphasis is squarely on water sports, which is where you are most likely to see them in action. Some books also give some coverage to other areas that are smaller, but still growing in popularity. For example, land boarding and snow kiting. In the course of educating the reader on kite surfing, the authors also teach a lot about selecting, buying and flying power kites. Safety is a big issue too, since the larger sizes can generate a lot of pull at higher wind strengths. The publication dates of these books reflect the explosive growth of kite-powered sports since the year 2000. The books featured here are all published after 2004. Nearly all are paperbacks, with a couple of quite substantial books of over 300 pages. The Chinese Kite BooksAs you would expect, the authors of most of these books are Chinese. Some have long family histories of involvement with the art and fine craftsmanship associated with Chinese kites. Books for children which include Chinese kites in the story line are more likely to be written by Western authors though. Also, over the years, some Westerners have taken an interest in Chinese kites to the point of being genuine experts themselves. Books on Chinese kites tend to fall into 3 categories, all of which you will find at the store-front.
In that first category, the focus is usually on kites as art. There might also be much historical detail. After all, Chinese kites have been around for thousands of years! The intertwining of kites with Chinese culture is often documented as well. The range of publishing dates goes back as far as 1967. However, most of these books were published in the 1990s. The Stunt Kite BooksThere's a range of approaches to the topic of sport or stunt kites here. Some books focus on actually building such kites from scratch. Others assume you have bought one, and get you up to speed on actually flying it. There's even a little package that includes a kite with the book! It's a small parafoil for children. There are more paperbacks than hardcover versions, published from 1989 through to 2002. It appears that the 1990s was the decade of the dedicated stunt kite book! The Box Kite BooksFirst up, I might just mention the one specific book that will be of most use if you want to build and fly your own box kite. Not too surprisingly it's called 'Making and Flying Box Kites'. This book by Dr Bill Cochrane was last published (as far as I know) in 1994. It has 96 pages, with a hard cover. The other publications take all sorts of interesting angles on the subject of box kites, and many of them are rather small. That is, not many pages! The publication dates go back to 1954, with the latest one in the year 2000. Here's a sample:
Last updated: 4 Jun 2008 Return to Home Page from Kite Books
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