These two books are really responsible for my interest in warm water fly fishing.
I have heard Whitlock is the guy who brought fly fishing for bass back to the mainstream. Tapply covers a bit more on fly tying techniques (deer hair spinning) and takes a more simpler approach (and focus is solely on topwater deer hair bug fishing)
You can teach yourself what equipment, how to cast, where/when to fish and much more from these two classics. I certainly did.
These are getting hard to find – especially the original black and white Whitlock original issue (1986). The updated color edition is not as good in my opinion.