Janet Leach by Joanna Wason is the third book in Unicorn Publishing's Leach series. All three books are reprints but well worth adding to your library for as well as their interesting content the books have a tactile quality that makes you want to pick up and handle them.

Unlike the two Bernard Leach titles, the Janet Leach book has considerably more content in the new Unicorn edition - around 20 new photographs, some additional text and an index.

The author, the potter Joanna Wason, still works at the Leach Pottery in an administrative role but for many years was Janet Leach's personal assistant. Before she died, Janet gave Joanna her personal papers and photographs, all now archived at the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham, so Joanna is the ideal person to paint a picture of Janet as a person and a potter.

The book details Janet's life from her childhood in Texas, how she left home at 15 and living in New York State decided she wanted to be a potter. Soon afterwards she met Bernard Leach at Black Mountain College in South Carolina and that changed her life forever, eventually managing the Leach Pottery for over forty one years while making her own remarkable pots.

The Crafts Council made the first edition of the book one of their twelve books of the year in 2022, this new edition is even better.