The Illustrated Bead Bible: Terms, Tips & Techniques
*Starred Review* Clinical psychologist, Native American, and author (Creative Native American Beading, 2005, and Native American Beadwork, 2006), Geary combs the planet to gather common terms, common questions (and their answers), examples of extraordinary stitches, and tables and charts guaranteed to help guide beadmakers through the amazing variety of bead decisions. She starts with a panoramic perspective of beading history, with a tribute to the first guru of beads (Horace Beck’s The Classification and Nomenclature of Beads and Pendants, 1928), and includes the anatomy and different shapes of beads. Throughout the easy-to-read narrative are fascinating facts, such as bottle beads being the name for African beads crafted from recycled Coke bottles and the fiction that Manhattan was sold for $24 in beads to the Dutch. All the Ts—tips, terms, and techniques—are covered in glorious detail, accompanied by color examples, illustrations, templates/graphs, and pictorial data, from the traditional Mohs scale of hardness to lists of glass-bead finishes. The majority of the book is devoted to the glossary, yet don’t overlook its value nor the very practical directions and wealth of information Geary has amassed. --Barbara Jacobs