Review: 'Japanese Book-Binding' by Kojiro Ikegami

Japanese Book-Binding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman by Kojiro Ikegami, 1986, Weatherhill, $34.95, hardbound, 127 pages. Category/Genre: how-to. Cover: understated, but we don't care for the green. Where we got it: publisher. Where you can get it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million. 


This book covers virtually every major binding style in Japan's approximately 1,500-year history of binding. If you are looking to make any of the major, historically important styles of Japanese bindings or traditional book cases, this volume is the one for you.

Firstly, the author goes over the tools and materials essential to this craft; he then outlines the basic binding procedure, a stitched four-hole book. After that are five variations on the four-hole book, four types of accordion book, six kinds of ledger or memo pad, the handscroll, and so on. Three types of book cases are included, as is a chapter on how to mend Japanese books.

For history lovers and craftsmen alike.

If you like this one, try: Suggestions?