The Knot Bible - the complete guide to knots and their uses - by Nic Compton
Bloomsbury 2013 ISBN 978-1-4081-5476-2
Knots tied by Ken Yalden, Colin Byfleet was technical consultant. (Both are IGKT members)
The general impression of the book [that I got] is that it is well written, has good information beyond the actual knots and does offer a simple to- use guide to reliability and use. As with all books with ‘bible’ in the name, it comes short of meeting the goal, but it has more knots than many of the competitors on the market, roughly 200, with a good selection of practical knots, bends, coils, whippings and seizings, splices and lashings as well as a starter set of decorative knots. As a bonus, included in the 200 are some of Harry Asher’s less-well-known knots.
Knotting instructions are concise, but they do need the text as well as photos for all but the most experienced knot tyers. It is a pity that in some cases the aesthetics have won over the readability of the photos.
Ken was told not to show his hands in the photos and was given some rope and backgrounds to use, and while most photos used in the book are those for which he tied the knots, not all are. Some come out of the photo library of the publishers. Not as visible, Colin has had an influence on the book; they did listen to what he said in proof reading, especially in the photos - without him they would have gone for the ‘artistic’ slant in many more.
They have not managed to get all the errors out, those that are left are mainly in the names and the fact that the order of the items is not always logical.
Willeke van der Ham