This is a great book for ideas, but it doesn't give you a step by step on how to create your own memory book or journal. For the most interesting ones, it tells you some of the items they used to make it. If you already know how to create your own book, this is for you. If you are like me, and wanted a step by step, look for something else.

There's a lot in this book and overall its pretty good but its not a favorite book of mine simply because the instructions aren't that detailed. Instead, there's more text around the artists who made the different samples and what the story is around the resulting book or box that they created. In some cases there are just pictures of finished products with no description of how to make it other than a description of what it is (e.g. "five wedge shaped pages with silk-screened pop-up illustrations). In sections where there are instructions it's a bit more useful but they assume you know things (like the blanket stitch). Overall I think you can use this as an idea book but not really as an instruction book.

I don't recommend you buy this book if you're looking to learn the basics of how to bind books. Styles like coptic and codex are not specifically covered here in clear, easy steps. Instead, I have to go hunting for info and pull together a semblance of something useful from several of their silly (but creative) projects they've stuffed the book with.

Beginning bookbinder, don't be fooled by the description given for the book! You'd be better off searching for bookbinding information on a website such as Craftster.