[Idaho John]

I would recommend "Beginning Fingerstyle Blues Guitar" by Arnie Berle and Mark Galbo. This book gets your thumb going back and forth and within a relatively short period of time, you are playing some material that sounds pretty good.

Then Mark Hanson's "Art of Contemporary Travis Picking."

After these two - I would evaluate where I wanted to go with fingerstyle guitar - if blues, then Stefan Grossmans' material is highly recommended, also Happy Traum's series on fingerstyle blues guitar from Homespun (also check out Taylor clinician - Artie Traum - good stuff on Homespun tapes). I have enjoyed Kenny Sultan's lessons on CD and performances on DVD. My favorite dvd series has been "Blues by the Book - parts I & II" by Roy Book Binder, simply great stuff also on Homespun. And I am old enough to remember Merle Travis and Chet Atkins - and I still like them, they do not get "too old" for me. There is some nice material from Stefan Grossman's company on how to play fingerstyle in the Travis/Atkins style.

If you are interested in another style of music - I cannot give good recommendations.

I am not much of a fan of contemporary fingerpicking with the exception of Alex de Grassi and Michael Hedges. But...these two players changed my ideas about what was possible with acoustic guitar.

Good luck