After almost 30 years of doing pottery I have some books, and have seen others that I think are good, some of them are even still in print. As I am asked about good pottery books I have composed this list and linked each book to Barnes & Noble For more information on a book pictured below, click on the underlined title of the book. You will be taken to the Barnes & Noble Page for that book.
To search Barnes & Noble for other books try this
search icon by Title, Author, or Keyword.
"Pottery" will give you 1700 + hits, many not relevant. Try "pottery clay" or if you are interested in a specific area "pottery wheel" or "pottery hand" or pottery thrown" or "pottery glaze. (don't use the quote marks " ")
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This is one of the first books that I ever bought on pottery and is one of the most used. It covers all aspects of pottery. Hand building, sculpture, wheel work, jiggering, mold making, glazing, firing and a lot more. While the book is old and the styles of pottery have changed there is a great deal of information in here, such as mold making and jiggering, that is still relevant and not covered in other books . Click on the Title above for more details. |
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This is a book with hundreds of suggestions for potters. Most are four to ten lines and cover all areas of pottery. The book has been compiled from 30 years of readers' suggestions to Ceramics Monthly Magazine and is one you can sit down with for a couple of minutes and come away with a few solutions to problems you have been having. This is another book in my personal collection. This book isn't very expensive and would make a good stocking stuffer. |
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Michael Casson is one of the best classic Potters. In this book he deals mostly with working on the wheel but also discusses hand building, glazing, firing, and everything you need to know about making pots. The book was published in 1977 but the technical information still holds up and the forms are classical and still beautiful. There are a lot of black and white pictures to help you learn. |
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This book covers hand building, working on the wheel, molds, and is made in an unusual way. If you took a spiral notebook, cut the length into two sections so that the spiral still held them, you could pick a project in the top section and leaf through different technique pages used to make the project in the bottom section. That's what this book does. the top book has different projects and the bottom book is all of the techniques used in making the projects. It's a good idea and the book has a lot of other good ideas in the form of ceramic projects. It's a new book 1998 and is good for beginners as well as the more advanced. |
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By Eric Barbaformosa Forming pottery on the potter's wheel is what this book is all about and because it only deals with the one subject it covers it in more depth than other books. This and hundreds of full color pictures on the process make this a very good choice for anyone who wants to learn to make pottery or "throw" on the potter's wheel. |
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Daniel Rhodes was always my favorite author of ceramic books. I have all of the books he has written and have read every one cover to cover, unfortunately his other books don't seem to be in print anymore. Clay and Glazes are the only thing that this book discusses and it discusses them in great detail. It is a reference book that should be in every serious potter's library. |
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Clay and glazes are all that this book deals with and unlike Rhodes in the book above Mr. Zakin deals less with the theory of glaze formulation but gives many glaze formulas along with information on how to vary them. If you don't want to deal with the theory and just want to start experimenting with glazes this may be the book for you. |
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There are lots of glaze formulas in this book and I have tried a number of them with good results. If all you want is some new formulas to try this book is for you and isn't very expensive. It was published by Ceramics Monthly Magazine |
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This is another book published by Ceramics Monthly. Some of the projects are owls, cats, steamers, bird feeders and houses, teapots, lamps and ceramic horns. Again I have tried a number of projects in here over the years and enjoyed them. |
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This book is bigger than most, 336 pages so it has more space to deal with hand building, sculpture, throwing, and even some history. Lots of pictures both black and white and color |
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Length and height is where this book is big and that gives room to do a lot with graphics. This is a very beautiful book and has a lot of good content dealing with hand building, wheel work, and mold making, as well as pouring. |
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This book was written to be a text book so it takes you through working with clay in a very orderly way starting with, what clay is. Lots of pictures for inspiration in this book. |
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Coiled Pottery isn't meant to be an instructional how to book but rather a discussion of how coiling is and has been done around the world. There is plenty of information in this book for anyone who wants to coil or is just interested the ethnic derivation of this form of pottery. This is another book from my personal library. |
| Unfortunately there is no picture for this book. but I felt it needed to be included anyway. |
Design and decoration are the topics of this book. There is no instruction on how to make a piece just lots of ideas on the design and art of the craft. Again as this book only deals with the one subject they have time to really give you a lot of good information.
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Here is a list of a few other books that I feel deserve a mention but are no longer published or at least not actively carried by Barnes & Noble. Many can be found by searching in the above search icon and then going on to their "network of out of print book dealers."
Michael Cardew: Pioneer Pottery. This is the pottery book I would want if I was dropped into the middle of Africa and needed to make pottery. It's not a how to book but rather a technical book for more advanced potters.
Paulus Berensohn: Finding One's Way With Clay. With this book, some clay, a few inexpensive chemicals, a pile of old red bricks, and saw dust This book will teach you to make some pots.
Daniel Rhodes: Pottery Form. I wouldn't recommend this book to learn to throw but once you have the basics down it can teach you a lot about the classic shapes and form.
Daniel Rhodes: Kilns. If you want to build your own kiln you will want to read this book. It is a great history as well as technical manual for kilns.
As I find other books that are good I will add them to the list so check back from time to time
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