Joints - The Hidden Wisdom of Japanese Architecture - 継手・仕口―日本建築の隠された知恵

継手・仕口―日本建築の隠された知恵
Joints (wooden) - The Hidden Wisdom of Japanese Architecture

This is one of the books that pop up on ebay occasionally from sellers in Japan. I was assuming this would be a quality book, instead of a mere booklet. As was expected the book is entirely in Japanese, and is printed in reverse order (front is the back). Entire booklet is 60 pages if you count the covers. I have seen this 1000 Yen booklet listed anywhere from $30-50, and I bought it in an auction listing for $22. Amazon.co.jp offers the book new and used for cover price or less, but shipping to the US starts at 3000 yen (over $30 US Dollars). The ISBN is 978-4-87275-511-4 . From what I can figure the first half of the book is describing temple architecture, and the second half is mostly text dealing with joinery. There is a middle part of 12 pages (6 pages with front and back) that shows a build up (pictures and line drawings) of model that uses a variety of joints. It might very well be a great book if you can read the text (I can't :P), but for outsiders, it is simply overpriced. For the same money, there are several books in English that cover more joints, and offer more total content. I will cover some of those books in future posts.