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In early 1963 a 22-year-old gung fu teacher in Seattle had 1,500 copies of a small book printed with the help of a friend in Oakland, and sold them for $5 each. It was the only book Bruce Lee published in his lifetime. Ten years later he was dead at 32, in Hong Kong, before Enter the Dragon reached cinemas, and he left behind notebooks, letters, training logs and drafts, much of it written in 1970 while a back injury kept him from training. Almost everything since has come from that archive: the Tao of Jeet Kune Do in 1975, the Fighting Method manuals, and the Bruce Lee Library edited by John Little in the 1990s. This guide covers every book in order, where to start, and how his notes were turned into books.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1963–2009 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Bruce Lee has 11 key books to his name, from Chinese Gung-Fu (1963), the only one published in his lifetime, to Wisdom for the Way (2009), plus 6 more: three expanded editions and three books about him by his widow, his editor and his daughter. All but the first were assembled after his death from his notes, letters and interviews. Which one to start with depends on whether you train, want his philosophy, or want to hear him in his own letters.
Where to Start with Bruce Lee
If you want the book everyone means by “Bruce Lee’s book”
→ Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975).
If you want short sayings to dip into
→ Striking Thoughts (2000).
If you train and want his methods
→ Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method (1976).
If you want to hear him as a person
→ Letters of the Dragon (1998).
If you want his philosophy beyond fighting
→ Artist of Life (1999).
11 Key Bruce Lee Books, in Order
Chinese Gung-Fu
Published in early 1963, when he was 22 and teaching in Seattle, with the help of his friend James Yimm Lee of Oakland, whose company Oriental Book Sales sold it for $5; the first run was 1,500 copies. It lists the Northern and Southern styles, explains stances, waist and leg training and the theory of yin and yang, with his own drawings, and its second part is close to sixty pages of photographs of him demonstrating techniques. It was reprinted in 1987, and Black Belt Books issued a revised edition in 2008 with a new third part of photographs and handwritten notes, introduced by his daughter Shannon Lee.
Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Published by Ohara Publications in 1975, two years after his death, first as a paperback and in 1976 as a hardback. The core was written while he was laid up with a back injury in 1970; the rest is notes he kept for years, many of them unfinished. Gilbert L. Johnson edited it, with help from Linda Lee Cadwell and his student Dan Inosanto, into a large-format book of 208 pages with hundreds of his own sketches, running from Zen and the empty mind to footwork, kicking, striking and grappling. Black Belt published a new expanded edition in November 2011.
Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method
Written in 1966, with photographs taken in 1967, then held back: he feared that instructors would use it to promote themselves. After his death Linda Lee Cadwell agreed to release it, and Mito Uyehara, founder of Black Belt magazine, arranged the material. Ohara published the first volume, Self-Defense Techniques, 125 pages, in 1976, followed by Basic Training, Skill in Techniques and Advanced Techniques. His student Ted Wong appears beside him in many of the pictures.
Words of the Dragon
The first volume of the Bruce Lee Library, the series Tuttle published from 1997 with John Little as editor for the Lee estate. It gathers newspaper and magazine interviews from 1958, when he was still in Hong Kong, to the year of his death, arranged in four parts: the Seattle years, the Kato years of The Green Hornet, Hollywood and Hong Kong. Linda Lee Cadwell wrote the preface. A second edition followed in 2017, at 160 pages.
The Tao of Gung Fu
A book on Chinese martial art that he had planned and left unfinished, completed and edited by John Little with the Lee estate and published by Tuttle in 1997. It covers basic techniques and training methods, Taoism and Zen as applied to gung fu, Eastern and Western fitness regimens and self-defence, and ends with a “scrapbook” of his notes on the history and traditions of the Chinese martial arts. 200 pages, with more than 300 photographs and drawings.
Jeet Kune Do
At 399 pages the longest book in the series, compiled and edited by John Little from the notebooks in which he worked out Jeet Kune Do, the approach he began calling “the way of the intercepting fist” in 1967. Published by Tuttle in 1997, it is the third volume of the Bruce Lee Library and goes over much of the same ground as the 1975 Tao of Jeet Kune Do, technique and philosophy side by side, at more than twice the length.
The Art of Expressing the Human Body
His own conditioning programme, rebuilt by John Little from notes, letters, diaries, training logs, interviews and the books in Lee’s library. It covers nutrition, aerobic work, isometrics, stretching and weight training, laid out as routines a reader can follow. A large-format book of 256 pages with some 120 photographs, published by Tuttle in October 1998.
Letters of the Dragon
Letters he wrote from 1958, when he was still a secondary-school student in Hong Kong, until 1973, most of them to family and friends. Between the plans and the philosophy are ordinary details: Publishers Weekly noted his “fond and matter-of-fact missives about shooting schedules and his pets”. Tuttle published it in 1998, at 190 pages.
Artist of Life
Drawn from his private notebooks, this volume follows his thinking outside the training hall: on gung fu, philosophy, psychology, acting and self-knowledge, along with his poetry and a selection of letters in which he advised others. John Little edited it for Tuttle in 1999; the 2018 edition has 288 pages and more than 100 photographs.
Striking Thoughts
825 of his sayings, taken from his notes and arranged under 72 topics in eight sections. One of them sums up how he saw his role as a teacher: “A teacher is never a giver of truth—he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself.” Tuttle published it in 2000 as the seventh volume of the Bruce Lee Library, in a small format of 256 pages.
Wisdom for the Way
A short book of 70 pages from Black Belt, the publisher of Black Belt magazine, issued in October 2009. It pairs his sayings on martial arts, the universe and everyday life with photographs and graphic symbols, a short way into the ideas spelled out at length in the Bruce Lee Library.
How Many Books Has Bruce Lee Written?
He published one book himself, in 1963; everything else was compiled after his death in 1973 from his notes, letters and interviews. Counts vary because the Fighting Method appeared in four volumes and later as one, and because books about him, such as Shannon Lee’s Be Water, My Friend, are often listed as his.
- Published in his lifetime — Chinese Gung-Fu Read the entries →
- The first posthumous books — Tao of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method Read the entries →
- The Bruce Lee Library, edited by John Little — Words of the Dragon, The Tao of Gung Fu, Jeet Kune Do, The Art of Expressing the Human Body, Letters of the Dragon, Artist of Life, Striking Thoughts Read the entries →
- A gift book of sayings — Wisdom for the Way Read the entries →
- Expanded editions and books about him — Three later editions; books by Linda Lee, John Little and Shannon Lee See the list →
In What Order to Read Bruce Lee
There is no story to follow, so the order depends on what you want. For the philosophy, begin with Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975) and go on to Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee’s Commentaries on the Martial Way (1997), which prints much more of the same notebooks. Chinese Gung-Fu (1963) and The Tao of Gung Fu (1997) show where he started, before Jeet Kune Do; Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method and The Art of Expressing the Human Body are the practical training books.
The Bruce Lee Library was numbered, but each volume stands alone. Words of the Dragon and Letters of the Dragon belong together, his voice in interviews and in private, and Artist of Life and Striking Thoughts together cover his thinking about life rather than fighting.
A reading path
1. Striking Thoughts (2000), short sayings, to get his voice
2. Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975), the book that made his notes famous
3. Letters of the Dragon (1998), the man behind the image
4. Artist of Life (1999)
5. Jeet Kune Do (1997), the full notebooks, for those who want more
Everything Else Bruce Lee Published: The Full List
Beyond the 11 key books: 6 more titles, grouped by form.
Open a form with the + to see every book in it.
Later and expanded editions
3
3 books · 2008–2011
- 2008Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense, revised and updatedBlack Belt edition with a new section of photographs and handwritten notes, introduced by Shannon Lee
- 2008Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method: The Complete Editionthe four volumes in one hardback of 483 pages, with a new chapter by Ted Wong
- 2011Tao of Jeet Kune Do: New Expanded EditionBlack Belt edition, expanded with input from Shannon Lee and Bruce Lee Enterprises
Books about him and his philosophy
3
3 books · 1975–2020
- 1975Bruce Lee: The Man Only I KnewLinda Lee’s memoir of her husband, published two years after his death
- 2000The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragonthe eighth volume of the Bruce Lee Library, about his life rather than by him
- 2020Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce LeeShannon Lee’s book on her father’s philosophy, from Flatiron Books, 240 pages
The years · 1940–2009
Quick facts about Bruce Lee
- Known for
- Bruce Lee was known for bringing Chinese martial arts to a worldwide film audience, and for arguing that a fighter should keep what works and drop the rest.
- 1940
- Born in San Francisco
- 1963
- Only lifetime book, Chinese Gung-Fu
- Born
- 27 November 1940, San Francisco, as Lee Jun-fan; raised in Hong Kong
- Died
- 20 July 1973, Hong Kong, aged 32
- Founded
- Jeet Kune Do, “the way of the intercepting fist”, in 1967
- Trained
- Wing Chun under Ip Man in Hong Kong
- Studied
- Philosophy at the University of Washington, Seattle, from 1961
- Films
- Four completed kung fu films, from The Big Boss (1971) to Enter the Dragon (1973)
- Family
- Married Linda Emery in 1964; their children are Brandon and Shannon Lee
The red mark is 1975: Tao of Jeet Kune Do, the first of the books assembled from his notes after his death.
How Bruce Lee Wrote: Notebooks Turned into Books
Apart from Chinese Gung-Fu in 1963, he never finished a book. What he left was a working archive: notebooks, essays, training logs, letters, and annotations in the margins of the books in his library. Much of it dates from 1970, when a back injury kept him from training. After his death Gilbert L. Johnson edited the core into Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975), helped by Linda Lee Cadwell and Dan Inosanto; Mito Uyehara arranged the Fighting Method volumes; and in the 1990s the Lee estate gave John Little access to the papers for the Bruce Lee Library, published by Tuttle from 1997.
The same ideas return throughout: no fixed style, simplicity, directness, and the image of water, which takes the shape of whatever holds it. He studied Taoism and Buddhism and was particularly interested in Jiddu Krishnamurti; his notebooks quote and comment on Plato, Hume and Descartes as well as Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, Miyamoto Musashi and Alan Watts. He also kept detailed records of his own conditioning, which became The Art of Expressing the Human Body.
Because the books are built from notes, the line between his words and his reading is not always clear. Ohara acknowledges that parts of the Tao of Jeet Kune Do draw on the fencing and boxing writers Edwin Haislet, Roger Crosnier and the Castellos, and readers have since traced further passages to D. T. Suzuki and Eric Hoffer. Some details of his life are also disputed: he is generally said to have studied philosophy at the University of Washington, but a 1999 article in the university’s alumni magazine reported that his official major was drama. He died on 20 July 1973 after collapsing at the Hong Kong flat of the actress Betty Ting Pei; the autopsy found swelling of the brain and judged a reaction to the painkiller Equagesic the most likely cause, and theories about his death have circulated ever since.
Bruce Lee’s Hollywood Screen Test
Frequently asked questions about Bruce Lee’s books
How many books did Bruce Lee write?
He published one book in his lifetime, Chinese Gung-Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense (1963). Ten more were compiled after his death from his notes, letters and interviews, among them Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975), the four-volume Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method (from 1976), the seven volumes of the Bruce Lee Library edited by John Little (1997–2000) and Wisdom for the Way (2009).
What was Bruce Lee’s first book?
Chinese Gung-Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense, published in early 1963 with the help of his friend James Yimm Lee in Oakland. The first run was 1,500 copies, sold for $5 each through James Lee’s Oriental Book Sales.
What is Bruce Lee’s most famous book?
Tao of Jeet Kune Do, published by Ohara Publications in 1975, two years after his death. It was edited by Gilbert L. Johnson from Lee’s notes and essays, with help from Linda Lee Cadwell and Dan Inosanto, and an expanded edition appeared in 2011.
Which Bruce Lee book should I read first?
Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975) if you want the book his reputation as a thinker rests on. If you prefer short passages, Striking Thoughts (2000) collects 825 of his sayings on 72 topics; if you want to know him as a person, Letters of the Dragon (1998).
What is the Bruce Lee Library?
A series of books published by Tuttle from 1997, edited by John Little for the Lee estate: Words of the Dragon, The Tao of Gung Fu, Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee’s Commentaries on the Martial Way, The Art of Expressing the Human Body, Letters of the Dragon, Artist of Life and Striking Thoughts, with an eighth volume, The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon (2000), about his life.
Did Bruce Lee write Be Water, My Friend?
No. Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee (Flatiron Books, 2020) is by his daughter, Shannon Lee, who uses his philosophy and family stories to show how his ideas apply to everyday life. The title comes from words he spoke in his 1971 television interview with Pierre Berton.
How did Bruce Lee die?
He died in Hong Kong on 20 July 1973, aged 32, after collapsing at the flat of the actress Betty Ting Pei. The cause was swelling of the brain (cerebral oedema); the official inquest blamed a hypersensitive reaction to the painkiller Equagesic and recorded death by misadventure, although later writers have proposed heatstroke or hyponatraemia instead. He is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle.
Who was Bruce Lee?
Bruce Lee, born Lee Jun-fan in San Francisco on 27 November 1940 and raised in Hong Kong, was a martial artist, teacher and film actor. He trained in Wing Chun under Ip Man, moved to Seattle in 1959, opened schools on the West Coast, founded Jeet Kune Do in 1967 and starred in The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon. He died in 1973.
When did Bruce Lee die, and how old was he?
Bruce Lee died on 20 July 1973 in Hong Kong, aged 32; he had been born on 27 November 1940. He was taken from Betty Ting Pei’s flat to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Had he lived, he would be 85 as of October 2026.
What did the inquest into Bruce Lee’s death find?
A coroner’s inquest in Hong Kong, held in September 1973, concluded that acute cerebral oedema had been caused by a reaction to compounds in the prescription painkiller Equagesic, which he had taken shortly before lying down. The expert witnesses disagreed, and the finding rested largely on a London specialist’s view that he had suffered a severe hypersensitive reaction. The coroner recorded the death as misadventure.
What are the other theories about how Bruce Lee died?
In his 2018 biography Bruce Lee: A Life, Matthew Polly argues that heatstroke caused the brain swelling, pointing to the heat that day and to the removal of Lee’s underarm sweat glands months earlier. A December 2022 paper in Clinical Kidney Journal by kidney specialists in Spain hypothesised that hyponatraemia, his kidneys failing to excrete enough water, was to blame. Both are hypotheses; neither has changed the official finding.
Was Bruce Lee murdered?
There is no official finding that he was. Rumours after his death blamed gangsters, poisoning and even a kung fu “death touch”, but the inquest attributed his death to a reaction to a painkiller and recorded it as misadventure.
How did Bruce Lee’s son Brandon die?
Brandon Lee was shot on 31 March 1993 in Wilmington, North Carolina, while filming a scene for The Crow, aged 28. A prop gun meant to fire blanks had a bullet lodged in its barrel, which struck him in the abdomen; an investigation ruled his death an accident. He was buried beside his father in Seattle on 3 April 1993.
Where was Bruce Lee born, and where was he from?
He was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown on 27 November 1940, which made him an American citizen, but his family returned to Hong Kong in April 1941, when he was four months old, and he grew up there. His father, Lee Hoi-chuen, was a Hong Kong Cantonese opera singer, and his mother, Grace Ho, was born in Shanghai and was of mixed Chinese and European descent. He went back to the United States in 1959.
Where is Bruce Lee buried?
Bruce Lee is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington, the city he moved to in 1959 to continue his education. His son Brandon is buried next to him.
How tall was Bruce Lee, and how much did he weigh?
Bruce Lee was 172 cm (5 ft 8 in) tall and weighed about 64 kg (141 lb).
What martial arts did Bruce Lee practise, and who trained him?
His father taught him the basics of Wu-style tai chi, and as a teenager in Hong Kong he trained in Wing Chun under Ip Man, as well as boxing, winning the 1958 Hong Kong schools boxing tournament. He also drew on fencing, judo, wrestling and several kung fu styles before creating his own approach, Jeet Kune Do (“the way of the intercepting fist”), in 1967.
Did Bruce Lee fight Chuck Norris?
Only on screen: Lee cast Norris as his opponent in The Way of the Dragon (1972), whose Colosseum showdown is one of the best-known fight scenes in film. Off screen they were friends and training partners, having met at a martial arts demonstration in Long Beach in 1964.
Did Bruce Lee meet Muhammad Ali?
No, the two never met. Lee admired Ali and studied his footwork closely in the 1960s, working it into his own fighting style.
Is the video of Bruce Lee playing ping-pong with nunchaku real?
No. It was a viral advertisement made in 2008, 35 years after his death, by the Beijing office of the agency JWT for a Nokia N96 Bruce Lee edition phone, and it stars a look-alike actor, with the ball and sound added afterwards.
Footnotes
- Bruce Lee — brucelee.com (Bruce Lee Family Company)
- About Bruce Lee — Bruce Lee Foundation
- Lee, Bruce (1940–1973) — HistoryLink.org
- Bruce Lee — Wikipedia
- Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense — Wikipedia
- Chinese Gung Fu, book review — Kung Fu Kingdom
- Tao of Jeet Kune Do — Wikipedia
- Tao of Jeet Kune Do — Independent Publishers Group
- Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method — Wikipedia
- Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method: Self-Defense Techniques (1976) — Arlington Heights Memorial Library
- Bruce Lee Library — Wikipedia
- Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee’s Commentaries on the Martial Way — East Carolina University Library
- The Art of Expressing the Human Body — Open Library
- Striking Thoughts — Tuttle Publishing
- Artist of Life — Tuttle Publishing
- Be Water, My Friend — Kirkus Reviews
Bibliography last verified 7 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
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