Thirty amigurumi projects from Lauren Espy, photographed and written out step by step so a first timer can finish something recognizable in an evening. Garden vegetables, aquarium creatures, farm animals, bakery sweets, all in the small round style that made amigurumi a phenomenon.

It is a hardcover, which matters more than it sounds: this is a book that lies open on a table beside a hook and a ball of yarn for hours. One hundred and seventy six pages of patterns, stitch guidance and photos, and the reason a lot of people finally learned to crochet.