I recently bought a recorder and fancy exploring the instrument without necessarily paying for lessons at this stage. Could anyone hereon recommend a tutor book or two to get me a fair grounding on the basics? Many thanks for your help!

Very old now, but I still think the School Recorder Books by Priestly and Fowler are as good as anything modern. There are very many modern books, but they are full of cartoon characters and colour scheming and the like which usually don't appeal to the adult learner. Book 1 was red, book 2 green and book 3 (advanced) blue. I don't know if they are still being produced, but they turn up in just about every Oxfam shop!

The name Brian Bonsor is well worth searching out

A good suggestion from barri-clari!

I've just checked and the School Recorder Books are still available. Of course if you've bought a Treble rather than a Descant, you could consider Alan Davis' Treble Recorder Technique, which is not cheap, but takes you right from the beginning up to a pretty advanced level.

Going back into the depths of my memory I think 'The New Recorder Tutor' series was pretty good as well. I seem to remember using them and The School recorder books when I taught myself to play treble and bass recorders (though as that was about 30 years ago my memory may be failing me)

Those are the books I taught myself from (even more than 30 years ago ).