I am sure no such thing exists, but is there a big book per se of woodworking for traditional methods, joints,designs? That covers like everything when it comes to construction and design. It seems like everytime I watch a video I come along something new and interesting but it is usually only shown long enough for just how to do it and I don't always understand the reasons why.
Example I am building the Paul sellers desktop organizer. He talks about using drawer slips and then shows how to make them. But I don't get the back story on design considerations or when to use them. So I Google drawer slips and really come up empty handed except for Derek has a piece on his website, which a guy's kinda goes into depth about them, which now I'm even more intrigued.
I really like to know the when, where and why behind things, not just "use a mortise here". Obviously for some things it's pretty simple as to why.
So what is out there that is the big book of traditional methods? I don't really care much about tool info, as I know most of it and if not that's really easy to come by.
Thank you
Michael