I've had the Ashley Book of Knots for a long time. It's great. According to the book, Ashley was one of the last people to actually work on a traditional square

I've had the Ashley Book of Knots for a long time. It's great. According to the book, Ashley was one of the last people to actually work on a traditional square rigged sailing ship. In the book I learned that the ship's carpenter early on a voyage would have all the sailors bring their pocket knives to him so that he could snap the points off the blades in order to make them less dangerous during disputes on the ship. The book is full of interesting passages like this. The book provides an encyclopedic coverage of knots and ropes; I highly recommend it to those curious about knot. There is one downside to the book, there are a number of new knots that were first described after the book was written, and some of these are worth knowing, for example the Zeppelin bend or the Simple Simon Under knot, see [1] and [2]. If someone wanted to know how to tie just one knot for possible use in an emergency, the first one covered in the featured article is a good one. The article calls it the Trace Figure Eight knot. Other sources call it the a figure-eight loop or figure-eight follow through loop. It's strong and reliable, and it's easy to learn and remember. (Its downside is that it can jam quite tight and become hard to untie.) There is also a variation of this knot for tying two similar ropes together. Bends are the category of knots for tying two ropes or lines together so this knot is known as the figure-eight bend. See [3] and [4]. Naturally, exercise care before trusting your life to a knot and consult with experts before doing so; I've seen a lot of foolish knots. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_bend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_bend [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Simon_under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Simon_under [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure-eight_loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure-eight_loop [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_bend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_bend