Abstract: Fundamentally, the invention pertains to a method and apparatus to be used in binding books. The apparatus may be constructed relatively small and portable, and may be used in offices and print shops where binding machines of the prior art are not practical due to size, expense, and complexity of operation and their inadaptability to small lot binding activity. The relatively small size and portability of the apparatus is made possible by a method of inserting into the book cover, a hot melt adhesive in cool hard form and melting the adhesive material by applying heat externally to the book cover to be bound. The apparatus therefore, comprises a number of devices in combination including a heating rack to heat the binding edge of the book, a cooling rack to cool the edge of the book cover, a mechanism that folds the book cover, and a device that adjusts the folding mechanism so as to fold the book cover in such a way as to accommodate the thickness of the collated pages to be bound.