I just received my copy of Tanemura Shoto's "Ninpou Secrets" in the mail this afternoon.
First thing I will say about it is it is THICK. It's about 10 inches long, the pages are rather thin paper and the print is small. Every page with text on it is packed, and pages demonstrating techniques with pictures are of good quality.
This was a relatively pricey book but I believe it to be the best book I have ever bought on any subject, bar none. If every book published on ninjutsu lived up to these standards I think we'd all be academic ninpou geniouses by now. You can order it from the genbukan website. I would recommend this book to anyone regardless of their training organization (That will be hard for some to swallow). It's loaded with information.
The way of the Ninja : Secret Techniques by Hatsumi Masaaki is also a good book, however you need to have been formally taught the kihon happou if you want to understand what is going on in the pictures of that particular book. It's packed with photos I'd say about 80% of it is full of 4 1/4page sized photos or full page photos. They are taken in a fairly artistic style (Long exposure times) but this also helps demonstrate the movement in the technique which still pictures can't represent. There is some philosophy in it and you'll need to work your brain muscles to understand what sensei is alluding to.
Hayes's books are not all that bad, I can't remember the name of the one, but it's basically a kihon demonstration manual. This was written in the 80's so it features very low kamae, exaggerated dakentaijutsu, etc. All in all I feel it is still a worthwhile book because low kamae and exagerated strikes ingrain (engrain?) the proper movements into you. (To stray off topic somewhat) Low kamae also develops leg muscles, positioning and proper breathing which will allow you to move in and out of normal 'shallow' kamae much faster, when you need to. If you never practiced deep ichimonji you'd never know that letting your knees collapse inward is a bad thing! You can't feel the problems in shallow kamae. You must be careful when reading about techniques in books by Hatsumi sensei because of this;what he is teaching is correct but it's also much more advanced than what we normally train in in North America. His kamae are almost invisible sometimes.
Stick fighting by Hatsumi sensei is available very cheaply on amazon, around 10 dollars. It's worth its weight in gold. In fact, you might as well just buy all of Hatsumi's less expensive books off of amazon, they all go for around or under 15 dollars US. With the more expensive ones determine what you are looking for in a book before buying it.
As for non books, but videos, the Jinenkan organization has impressive videos of the various ryuha they study. They aren't so philosophical, however simply watching the movements can really make you think about why things are done the way they are. They are very high quality videos.
