Book Review: Bound to be Beautiful by Bari Zaki

The book has 12 chapters plus an introduction, glossary, and resources. The first chapter goes over necessary tools and techniques for making the books included. Then the chapters cover a variety of binding options and book types, like accordion books, screw-post spines, and coptic-stitches. Some of the books use envelopes, and some of the 20 projects include things like covering pencils and butterfly clips with fancy paper.

There are 16 distinct bookbinding projects. Each project starts with a list of required materials and tools. Numbered step by step instructions are accompanied with letter labelled illustrations of most of the steps, so for example, step 2 is illustrated in image C. Bookbinding is complex, and Zaki does a good job of breaking down the steps. Having said that, it can be a little intimidating seeing everything required to put a hand made book together.

As an absolute beginner I felt lost sometimes going through the book. Some of the steps are a bit confusing. Sometimes it feels like there's a step missing, or I'm misunderstanding what's required. I had to read the instructions on what a paper sandwich was a few times to understand that this is to make a lined cover for softbound books. A short paragraph explaining what the paper sandwich was would have been helpful, not just the instructions on how to make one.

While the book has a lot of photos, I was surprised that the project chapters don't all start with an image of the finished binding/project in question. To see what you're making, you often have to skip to the end of that chapter, or even the end of the book.

The book is well made, but I feel like it's designed for people who have at least some experience with book binding already, enough that they're familiar with the terminology.