Annemor SundbøNorway's Knitted Heritage: The History, Surprises, and Power of Traditional Nordic Sweater Patterns

I've been building a knitting library for 35 years, with an emphasis on knitting history. This book is exceptional. From a practical point of view, it's very well made - heavy glossy paper, firmly bound, with good heavy covers. It lies open easily on a table, which is useful, because it's large and heavy.That aside, the important thing about any book is its contents, and this does not disappoint. It's beautifully and extensively illustrated, with many thumbnail photos of vintage sweaters, and also with photos of museum pieces, old advertisements, paintings and drawings, old pattern books, early industrial illustrations and equipment, and letters, as well as modern pictures and good photos of worn knitted fragments. The text is wide-ranging and fascinating. It covers too many topics to list; if you look at the product images at the top of the page, you can see a couple of pages of the table of contents which should give you an idea.The are no patterns per se, but there is a general sweater construction discussion, with gridded schematics and measurement tables, and a worksheet, as well as graphed colorwork charts, that look like they'll be sufficient for an experienced knitter (or an enthusiastic less-experienced one) to make what they wish. The Inspiration chaper, with good, larger photos of vintage sweaters and graphs for the colorwork in color - some in several colorways - is, indeed, very inspirational.There's no index, but the table of contents is very detailed, and should let readers find what they're looking for. The bibliography is extensive, and there are photography/picture credits.