Hand-made Books

This post is for c1aire who asked if I could recommend any books about making books by hand.

As she is currently making folded books, such as a concertina, my top recommendation would be "The Art of the Fold" which is well illustrated, easy to follow and has an amazing number of ideas for what you can do with folded paper!

There are a few more in the extras:

"Making Handmade Books" covers a much wider range of books and so devotes less time to each one.  I have used it to make sidebound books, where you stitch the pages together.

"Making Books" is published by the London Centre for Book Arts.  It's thorough but quickly gets advanced.  Professional bookbinders do tend to be perfectionists (which I am not).  I think it will be more use once I have done a course at the Centre.

"Creating Handmade Books" is an American book which also advances faster than I do, but it has lots of lovely ideas.

"bound" is my favourite of these books.  She covers a small number of varied projects but in a calm, mindful way, where creativity is more important than perfection.

I hope this helps!