5 books like How to Carve Wood

By Richard Butz,

Here are 5 books that authors have personally recommended if you like How to Carve Wood. Shepherd is a community of 8,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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The Unknown Craftsman

By Soetsu Yanagi,

Book cover of The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty

Strother Purdy Author Of Doormaking: Materials, Techniques, and Projects for Building Your First Door

From the list on on working with your hands.

Who am I?

As a teenager, I worked on cars and motorcycles in my spare time while apprenticing in an architectural millwork shop, paneling the homes of the rich and famous. Thus I discovered the great joys and satisfactions of working with my hands. After a long stint in graduate school, then four years as an editor at Fine Woodworking magazine and for Taunton Press books, I opened a custom design furniture business in 2000. Travel, writing, and reading are aligned passions, and I’ve lived, taught English, and woodworking here and abroad in France, Slovakia, India, and Japan.

Strother's book list on on working with your hands

Discover why each book is one of Strother's favorite books.

Why did Strother love this book?

They say that travel opens the mind in ways that staying home doesn’t. Books can take you places you can’t otherwise go. So with Yanagi, I got to visit the mind of an early 20th-century Japanese craft connoisseur who looked at thousand-year-old (plain and unassuming) tea bowls and wondered why they’re utterly beautiful and treasured (the best fetch huge sums at auctions–$25million recently for one). Yanagi’s exploration of how the hands of craftsmen can unknowingly and unintentionally create objects of great beauty was both fascinating as it was challenging. It made my shop work a hundred times more enjoyable.

The Unknown Craftsman

By Soetsu Yanagi,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Unknown Craftsman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

craftsman working in a set tradition for a lifetime? What is the value of handwork? Why should even the roughly lacquered rice bowl of a Japanese farmer be thought beautiful? The late Soetsu Yanagi was the first to fully explore the traditional Japanese appreciation for objects born, not made.' Mr. Yanagi sees folk art as a manifestation of the essential world from which art, philosophy, and religion arise and in which the barriers between them disappear. The implications of the author's ideas are both far-reaching and practical. Soetsu Yanagi is often'


Book cover of The New Fine Points of Furniture: Early American: The Good, Better, Best, Superior, Masterpiece

Strother Purdy Author Of Doormaking: Materials, Techniques, and Projects for Building Your First Door

From the list on on working with your hands.

Who am I?

As a teenager, I worked on cars and motorcycles in my spare time while apprenticing in an architectural millwork shop, paneling the homes of the rich and famous. Thus I discovered the great joys and satisfactions of working with my hands. After a long stint in graduate school, then four years as an editor at Fine Woodworking magazine and for Taunton Press books, I opened a custom design furniture business in 2000. Travel, writing, and reading are aligned passions, and I’ve lived, taught English, and woodworking here and abroad in France, Slovakia, India, and Japan.

Strother's book list on on working with your hands

Discover why each book is one of Strother's favorite books.

Why did Strother love this book?

Albert Sack is a riot. He lines up expensive antiques, ranks them from the definitive label “Masterpiece” to the slow-hand insult of “Good”. He describes each in brutally honest and thereby exceptionally insightful terms. One chair is “a brilliant achievement”, while a clock is “relatively crude,” and a table’s legs “end nowhere.” No one comes away with a trophy for participation, making the book exceptionally good to train your eye towards good design. You want people to like the things you make, don’t you? Learn to distinguish good from great with Albert.

The New Fine Points of Furniture

By Albert Sack,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The New Fine Points of Furniture as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An indispensable guide for collectors and dealers who want to compare and evaluate early American antiques. When Albert Sack's Fine Points of Furniture: Early American--Good, Better, Best was published in 1950, it established a new standard for evaluating American antiques. In his new book, Sack applies this standard to furniture pieces that have appeared on the market in more recent years. Full color and black-and-white photographs.


Shop Class as Soulcraft

By Matthew B. Crawford,

Book cover of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

Strother Purdy Author Of Doormaking: Materials, Techniques, and Projects for Building Your First Door

From the list on on working with your hands.

Who am I?

As a teenager, I worked on cars and motorcycles in my spare time while apprenticing in an architectural millwork shop, paneling the homes of the rich and famous. Thus I discovered the great joys and satisfactions of working with my hands. After a long stint in graduate school, then four years as an editor at Fine Woodworking magazine and for Taunton Press books, I opened a custom design furniture business in 2000. Travel, writing, and reading are aligned passions, and I’ve lived, taught English, and woodworking here and abroad in France, Slovakia, India, and Japan.

Strother's book list on on working with your hands

Discover why each book is one of Strother's favorite books.

Why did Strother love this book?

Talk about white privilege. This guy gets a doctorate in Philosophy, has a comfy career telling wealthy people what they want to hear, but throws it all away to skin his knuckles in a dingy shop teasing old motorcycles back to life for crap pay and occasional social abuse. Why? Read this book and find out: that working with your hands is satisfying, and good for the soul, connecting you with your essential humanity (so put the book down and go work with your hands). I actually hate this book, really, because he makes many points close to my heart, and I wanted to make them into a successful book. I also wish I had a motorcycle shop.

Shop Class as Soulcraft

By Matthew B. Crawford,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Shop Class as Soulcraft as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A philosopher/mechanic's wise (and sometimes funny) look at the challenges and pleasures of working with one's hands 

“This is a deep exploration of craftsmanship by someone with real, hands-on knowledge. The book is also quirky, surprising, and sometimes quite moving.” —Richard Sennett, author of The Craftsman

Called “the sleeper hit of the publishing season” by The Boston Globe, Shop Class as Soulcraft became an instant bestseller, attracting readers with its radical (and timely) reappraisal of the merits of skilled manual labor. On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a…


Make A Chair From A Tree

By John D. Alexander Jr.,

Book cover of Make A Chair From A Tree: An Introduction To Working Green Wood

Strother Purdy Author Of Doormaking: Materials, Techniques, and Projects for Building Your First Door

From the list on on working with your hands.

Who am I?

As a teenager, I worked on cars and motorcycles in my spare time while apprenticing in an architectural millwork shop, paneling the homes of the rich and famous. Thus I discovered the great joys and satisfactions of working with my hands. After a long stint in graduate school, then four years as an editor at Fine Woodworking magazine and for Taunton Press books, I opened a custom design furniture business in 2000. Travel, writing, and reading are aligned passions, and I’ve lived, taught English, and woodworking here and abroad in France, Slovakia, India, and Japan.

Strother's book list on on working with your hands

Discover why each book is one of Strother's favorite books.

Why did Strother love this book?

There are more comprehensive and detailed books on green woodworking, but none with Alexander’s unedited, liberating spirit, or his pioneering work. Lines such as “You need very few tools to go into the woods and bust a chair out of a tree” gave me a kind of permission to be bold, experiment, and just have fun (which is what he did, and is where the book comes from). You’ll learn how to make chairs (chairs!) with a small set of tools. You’ll likely put the book down before finishing it, and run into the woods to get started.

Make A Chair From A Tree

By John D. Alexander Jr.,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Make A Chair From A Tree as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When a tree is felled, the wood is green and is easy to cut, split, shave and shape. As it dries, the wood shrinks and hardensQand it becomes vastly more difficult to work. In the old days, wood-workers relied on the ease with which green wood could be worked to make the parts they needed, and on the way wood shrinks to hold these parts together. These old ways have almost been lost, but are revived here for the modern woodworker. Make a Chair From a Tree is a lively and informative introduction to the old ways of splitting and…


By These Ten Bones

By Clare B. Dunkle,

Book cover of By These Ten Bones

Sarah M. Awa Author Of Hunter's Moon

From the list on pawsitively awesome werewolfs.

Who am I?

While the werewolf curse isn’t real (as far as we know/thank goodness!), I do know what it’s like to have my life turned upside down by a painful illness that seems like a curse. When I was 23, I almost died from a rare autoimmune disease that tried to devour my lungs. More than a decade later, I’m still here and fighting, and my escapist love of reading fantasy books turned into a passion to write them. I also love metaphors and werewolves, and it all combined nicely with my BA in English! Aside from writing, I help other “underdog” authors as COO for indie publisher Thinklings Books.

Sarah's book list on pawsitively awesome werewolfs

Discover why each book is one of Sarah's favorite books.

Why did Sarah love this book?

This book is at the top of my list because it’s one of my very favorites. Dunkle spins a gripping, atmospheric story with memorable characters, and you can tell she’s done her research on medieval Scotland. I love the old Celtic tales woven in, and the sweet romance between Maddie and the woodcarver. But what I like most of all is the theme of redemption. Maddie is a true hero, brave in the face of an unimaginably powerful, ancient evil. She showed me that you don’t have to be big or strong or rich or “somebody” to make a difference. You just have to be willing, have faith, and do your part.

By These Ten Bones

By Clare B. Dunkle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked By These Ten Bones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There’s hidden places all over this land-old, old places. Places with a chain for them to chain up the wolf when it’s time.
A mysterious young man has come to a small Highland town. His talent for wood carving soon wins the admiration of the weaver’s daughter, Maddie. Fascinated by the silent carver, she sets out to gain his trust, only to find herself drawn into a terrifying secret that threatens everything she loves.
     There is an evil presence in the carver’s life that cannot be controlled, and Maddie watches her town fall under a shadow. One by one, people…


2 book lists we think you will like!

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