1000 Beads (500 Series) ($27.95 US; $30.95 CAN) is published by Lark with a publication date of April 2014, so it’s still fairly new. The juror who was responsible for creating this collection of hand-made beads is Kristina Logan. Like the other books in this series, this is a coffee table style type book that is designed to inspire and amaze. The focus of this book, of course, is beads, and who doesn’t love beads?

You name the material and you will more than likely find a bead made with it in this book. As I leisurely flipped through the pages, I noted a few favorites of mine, even though it was pretty hard to do. I am sure each time I look through this I will find more to enjoy. I was pleased to find a very cool bead by Cyndi Lavin, a transformed copper plumbing fixture adorned with bead embroidery. Marina Monica Medina also uses found objects, silk cocoons, and turns them into beads using silk thread, bronze wire, and ink calligraphy. Taking a different approach, Andrew Welch turned resin into what looks like pebbles, so instead of using found objects, he created beads that look like found objects. I thought that was clever.

Various beads throughout the pages are also arranged together when any type of method or material is similar. For example, Doris Hausler has paper beads made from book pages, and these photos are on a page spread with Niina Mahlberg’s beads that include newspaper. Other materials you will find in here that are part of these beautiful beads include wool, glass, metal, polymer clay, acrylic, bone, and lava. That is not a complete list by the way.

I can see this book appealing to a few different audiences. First, of course, there are the bead collectors out there who would love to have these in their hands, but having them in a book form is the next best thing. Then for bead makers, this is full of inspirations, as it would also be to inspiring bead makers.