There have already been a number of reviews about Master K's second book on the different forums. All praise, mine is no different, here goes.
Master K's second book has been in my possession for some time now but a current hardware issue with my computer stopped me from doing anything useful with the machine or go online for that matter.
The first thing you notice about the book is the packaging, you can't get around that. The second thing I noticed is the "little piece of paper that you put in the book to mark the page where you are reading it" (I don't know the English word for this.. come to think of it, I don't even know the Dutch word for this :). Both things, to me, are a sign and tell me the book is made with details in mind and a lot of love, made for those who appreciate and want to learn more about the subject of kinbaku.
When you first browse through the book, read some paragraphs about the (cultural) history, the key-figures, look at the gallery, browse the glossary, the how-to's you feel, know, that you are holding a pearl a wisdom.
Reading through the book is, well, amazing. For me personally the book contains information I was familiar with, BUT (a big _but_), the book completed the information in more ways than I could ever expect, added facts, details, timelines, connections to other pieces of information and history. Master "K" has an extensive library and network to retrieve his information from and it was definitely put to good use for this book. As you expect when you browsed through the book you now know for sure, the book is a pearl of wisdom.
So far it is all good. But is it all good, no there will always be things that are missing, different things by different people, "one- liners" in the text that you know could fill an entire book completely, key-figures that you might expect but are not there, specific descriptions in the glossary that might not agree with you, photo's in the glossary the you feel could be better photographed or tied. But is that bad? No! Actually that is very good imvho. This is Master K's book, a book about the beauty of kinbaku researched by Master "K", a very personal book with an enormous amount of information and insight he is willing to share with you. This is not some loose little article on the topic of kinbaku you can find everywhere on the web, this is well written book, based on well- researched facts. A book I think that has been "demanded" by the scene for years and Master "K" listened and created this book.
The book might not be cheap but compared to books of the same quality it is priced according to market (at least for Dutch standards). Comparing the quality is the only comparison I can make because there is no other English language book like this and that makes the value of the book a lot higher than the price you pay.
My conclusion, this is not a "nice-to-have" book, or a "I go along with the buzz of Japanese bondage" book, if you are truly serious about knowing more about the history of Japanese bondage as we now know it this book is a must have!
Oh and by the way, me liking the book has nothing to do with the fact that Chantal appears in the gallery section of the book, page 100... But really it has nothing to do with it (Page 100 of the gallery, go check! :)
Bob
http://www.RopeMarks.com/
