Depends. New wood or old wood? Clean, tight joints? Any oil or other residue present? Can you invisibly reinforce the joints? Hot glue is fine in many apps, but use the high strength stuff, not the "craft" grade sticks. If you have clean joints, you can use carpenter's glue (like TiteBond) or polyurethane (like Gorilla Glue), or even hide glue if you want to be a traditionalist. You might even use cyanoacrylate with an accelerator. If it's new work, I'd go with something like TiteBond. Remember that glue joints on end grain are not very strong, hence the question about invisible reinforcement.
