diff --git a/book/src/SUMMARY.md b/book/src/SUMMARY.md
index 4f2c7540..5816e741 100644
--- a/book/src/SUMMARY.md
+++ b/book/src/SUMMARY.md
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@
   - [Defining metadata types in rust](./metadata_derive.md)
   - [Metadata and tables](./metadata_tables.md)
   - [Metadata schema](./metadata_schema.md)
+
+* [Error handling](./error_handling.md)
   
 
 [Crate prelude](./prelude.md)
diff --git a/book/src/error_handling.md b/book/src/error_handling.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4cf78bc1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/book/src/error_handling.md
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+# Error handling <img align="right" width="73" height="45" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tskit-dev/administrative/main/logos/svg/tskit-rust/Tskit_rust_logo.eps.svg">
+
+The error type is [`tskit::error::TskitError`](https://docs.rs/tskit/latest/tskit/error/enum.TskitError.html#).
+
+This type implements `Display` and may thus be printed via:
+
+```rust, noplayground, ignore
+let x = match operation() {
+    Ok(y) => y,
+    Err(e) => panic("{}", e);
+};
+```
+
+The enum variant `TskitError::ErrorCode` represents integer return values from `tskit-c`.
+When printed via `Display`, the detailed error message is fetched.
+When printed via `Debug`, the numerical error code is shown.
+