I am one of the older members of this forum and I have an extensive library of bowling instructional books dating back to 1956. I still refer to the older books as the basics remain the basics now or 50 years ago. Listed in order of year of publication with an * denoting a favorite:

How To Bowl Better* - Ned Day 1956
Bowling Tips from Brunswick Champions* - Gordon S. White 1961
Secrets Of Perfect Bowling - Lou Bellisimo 1965
Every Bowler's Training Manual* - Charles Robinson 1966
Add 30 Pins To Your Bowling Score - Billy Welu 1972
Bowling - Nelson Burton Jr 1973
Inside Bowling - Don Johnson 1973
Inner Bowling - Barry Mann 1977
Winning Bowling* - Earl Anthony 1977
Strike Power* - Dave Davis 1977
Perceptive Bowling* - Robert Strickland 1980
Mastering Bowling - Dawson Taylor 1980
The Complete book Of Bowling* - Vesma Grinfelds 1980
Weber On Bowling - Dick Weber/Roland Alexander1981
The Mark Roth book Of Bowling - Mark Roth/Chuck Pezzano 1981
Marshall Holman's Bowling Tips & Techniques - M. Holman 1985
Bowl Like A Pro - David Ozio 1992
Par Bowling the Challenge* - Thomas Kouros 1993 (I gave away Kouros' first Par Bowling book to a fellow bowler)
Bowling-How To Master the Game* - Parker Bohn III 2000
Bowling Execution* - John Jowdy 2002
Focused for Bowling - Dean Hinitz 2003
Bowling Fundamentals - Michelle Mullen 2004

Over the years I lost two books - one was by Billy Sixty and the other was by Dick Ritger. The Ritger book I lent to my boss and never got it back.

John the only problem I have with the old books is when they discuss the release. I have read most of the books on your list and many of them talk about lifting and turning the ball, or the hand shake release. The handshake release got my Mother and Father to throw a full roller and me stuck with 90 degrees of axis rotation my whole bowling life. Lifting is detrimental to modern bowling as it causes the ball to bounce into the lane and reduce rotation and hook or bounce back up on top of the oil instead of sitting down into the oil. When the ball bounces up on top of the oil it will hydroplane and skid past the break point and having lost some of the axis rotation on impact, the ball doesn't have the energy to make it back to the pocket, or it comes in behind the head pin. For those reasons I would recommend the more modern books.

Tom Kouros Par Bowling the Challenge even mentions this even though it is an older book I highly recommend this one.

Not to worry, Coach. While I do refer to the older books on occasion it is just to note various positions in the stance etc as a couple of these older books have a good number of photos. Most of my reading pertaining to more modern techniques is based upon articles appearing in Bowling This Month as I am a subscriber and have been since 1997.

I Love BTM too, I have been a subscriber since 94, Bob Summerville always had the best articles rip Bob we miss you.

I refer to the older books myself, but some of them have old school mind sets that don't work any more and are hard to unlearn.

I just purchase several books on ebay and what a difference it has had in my game. I averaged 183 for that last 5 weeks in my summer league and the highest I have ever finished with was a 156. The books I have read this following summer where:
1) From Gutter balls to stikes
2) bowling strikes
3) bowling 200+
4) bowling 300
5) The Pro Approach.

I'm not sure who the authers are as I passed them to a bowling friend as I finished each one and told him to pass to another freind. The best advice I got from these are unmuscled swing, stay low, and keep hand behind the ball on release. Also keep a cool head as the only shot you can control is the next shot. They are all older books 80's early 90's but found them all a very good read.

Hey everyone, in your own opinion do you think that coaching is better than reading books or vice versa? Possibly both used together?

I would say it depends on the coach and it depends on the book.

I got to a 208 average on my own without coaching, getting by on books and BTM for many years, the problem is that what you are actually doing and what the books tell you to do are usually two different things. Another set of eyes that know what to look for is the best way to go, but if your only other set of eyes don't know what they are looking at then buy a video camera and see for yourself.