Welcome to Wattle and Daub Books.

A building technique known for perhaps 6000 years, wattle and daub construction has been adapted to climates as varied as northern Europe, temperate North and Mesoamerica, and equatorial Africa. Wattle is made by weaving branches or thin slats between vertical stakes. Clay or lime bind the material; sand or crushed stone give stability and weight. The whole is reinforced and made flexible by straw or hair or dung.

This marrying of lattices with mud, sand, and straw has led to its rising popularity as an Earth-friendly construction option. Available to tribal peoples, peasants, princes and pioneers, the wattle and daub shelter has ranged from the rickety and barely tolerable, to the comforting and delightful, to the grand and the austere.

Which has what, exactly, to do with Books?

It has more to do with writing, really. It’s our intention to present a series of varied and well-crafted books, books that have in common a closeness to the elements of our world. Words crafted from soil, from water, from wind and sapling and sweat. Words about our common bonds, our common injuries, our vision, and our failings. Words not lifted so far from the earth that the human heart itself is obscured, but arising so closely from it that the heart, and the mind, are in some small way revealed.

Welcome to Wattle and Daub Books. May you find comfort, inspiration, and stimulation within its walls.

—Susan Pinkus, Publisher