It can be a single block or a section of blocks. I don't know of a book, but you might try the website for Fons and Porter and see if they have a tutorial on it. There's another site that does tutorials called Brightcove. I've done one quilt that way, but I did sections of 4 blocks that made a big pinwheel. When I joined those sections, I joined them using the backing fabric and sewed right a long the raw edge of the blocks. Then I folded the backing fabric open and hand stitched down to form a sashing between the sections on the front. It turned out pretty cute, it was a baby quilt and not very big. I saw a program where they had done a queensize in quilt as you go and worked it in long strips. It looked good too.