This is a softcover reprint of Volume 1 in the Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding series, which was originally published in hardcover in 2013 and which has been out-of-print for some time. The series has been acclaimed internationally for its thought-provoking content related to bookbinding as practiced globally over millennia. This volume is dedicated to "all of our teachers who have shown us how to study, how to interpret, and how to describe the book."

Table of Contents: Julia Miller, "Editor's Preface"; Evyn Kropf, "Historical Repair, Recycling, and Recovering Phenomena in the Islamic Bindings of the University of Michigan Library: Exploring the Codicological Evidence"; Sylvie L. Merian, "Protection against the Evil Eye? Votive Offerings on Armenian Manuscript Bindings"; Consuela G. Metzger, "Colonial Blankbooks in the Winterthur Library"; Robert J. Milevski, "A Primer on Signed Bindings"; Julia Miller, "Not Just Another Beautiful Book: A Typology of American Scaleboard Bindings"; "Jeffrey S. Peachey, "Beating, Rolling, and Pressing: The Compression of Signatures in Bookbinding Prior to Sewing"; Martha E. Romero, "European Influence in the Binding of Mexican Printed Books of the Sixteenth Century"; Jennifer W. Rosner, "Papier-Mâché Bindings: 'Shining in Black and Gorgeous with Pearl and Gold'"; John Townsend, "The 1715 Mohawk Prayer Book: A Study of Six Copies in Colonial American Scaleboard Bindings"; bibliographies and index.