"There & Back Again": The Colonel's Book

My brother is an officer in the Ohio Army National Guard, and his unit was mobilized for deployment to Afghanistan shortly after the first of the year. When he was last deployed overseas (Iraq, 2006), he asked me to make him a journal, in which he recorded his diary notes, reflections and the like. He packed that book to take with him on this trip as well, but it only had a couple dozen blank pages left. At his request, I made this journal as Volume II and sent it to him at his unit's preliminary training site in Louisiana. He figures he'll be ready for Volume III shortly before the unit actually leaves for Afghanistan.

The book is 9 x 12 inches (22 x 30 cm). The binding is boot-weight black leather. (About 9 Ounces, or about 3.5mm thick.)
This style of soft binding is common in Renaissance paintings, and books made in this style were the common workbook of merchants, clerks and military officers on campaign. My brother liked his because it could be carried easily in a military map-case.
The book strap is riveted to the cover with three rosette nails. These were made from a pattern from the Higgins Museum in Massachusetts, and were acquired as part of my project to build a 15th century set of brigandine body armor.
Here's the book laid open.
Each gathering of pages, called a "quire" or "signature" is stitched into the cover with heavy waxed thread.
The binding-stitching is knotted at each crossing for protection. If need be, these pages can be removed from one binding and incorporated into another book. Additional "signatures" can also be sewn into the cover to expand the book's capacity.