My Woodworking Book Collection

Kari Hultman over at “The Village Carpenter“, my other favorite blogger, (besides me of course, who’d you think?) posted pictures of her woodworking library the other day. She has quite a collection of books, more than I do, I’m afraid, but with her kind permission, I stole her idea. Here are my books:

I buy books for three reasons. First is to find out how to do something, the most basic reason. When there are few people to ask about some arcane little bit of work, then books are the way to go. Sometimes I buy the book after a class because it keeps me from having to take notes in the class, and it is good for reviewing something I may have missed.

The second reason is vicarious enjoyment of the hobby. There are times when I think I want to start a new phase in my woodworking career by trying something totally new. My standard practice is to buy a book on the subject and after I read the book I can decide if I really want to go buy the tools and devote the time it takes to learn something new. Most of the time, I let the book make up my mind and decide that the vicarious lift from the book will serve my purposes. You may even be able to save a lot of money on tools that way. Best examples so far are the books on violin making and boat building, though I must say the boat dream endures.

The third reason is a peculiar one for me. I buy books, movies and videos because I want to encourage creative people to keep doing stuff I enjoy and I think they should be rewarded for what they do. I have been known to see a movie in the theatre and then buy it on video simply to encourage the creators. Maybe if we all did the same thing we could end up with better stuff all around.

My favorite book in all this: Well, how can you beat Krenov? The details in his work are amazing and then all of a sudden you grasp the scale of those beautiful pieces and it kind of makes you wonder if you should just give up the hobby because you think you will never get there.

The other best one has got to be Tage Frid’s series on woodworking. Volume one is the book lying open on my workbench whenever I am trying something new. And not to put myself in the same class as those guys, how can I pass up my own book on nail pulling?

You will enjoy all of these books. Click over to the High and look at their collection of over a thousand books for sale.

I realized after I took the pictures that I had left out one of my favorite woodworking books. I have a copy of the original non-Disney “Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi. How can you beat that for high skill wood working?

Feel free to post a comment on this blog entry and let me know some of your favorites.