Favourite Books

[Sawyer]

I collect books as avidly as tools and I'm sure I'm not the only one. These are some of my favourites.

George Sturt: 'The Wheelright's Shop'. An historical gem, also good on the technical stuff. I'd love to make a wheel or two some day.
Walter Rose 'The Village Carpenter' Another historical masterpiece. Particularly good on the fascinating social side referring to C19th.
George Ellis; 'Modern Practical Joinery' circa 1908. No longer 'modern', but most of it still relevant. Highy technical, with some very scary machinery!
Ernest Joyce; 'The Technique of Furniture Making' Goes without saying really?
Percy Wells & John Hooper; 'Modern Cabinet Work'. Has been described as the (1922) precurser to Joyce.
Sam Clarke; 'Sam, an East End Cabinet Maker'. Wonderful working class memoir of the London furniture trade between the wars.
Anything by VJ Taylor.

There are pleny of others, but these are top of the list. What do other people like, and why?

 

[dickm]

There are pleny of others, but these are top of the list. What do other people like, and why?

Almost anything by Charles Hayward - they don't make 'em like him any more!

 

[lanemaux]

I like some humour with my woodwork , so any and all of Roy Underhills books are big in my shelves.

 

[chunkolini]

Irvine Walsh.
nowt tae dae wi woodwork but cracking good stuff.
Also nerdy science books and anything by Vassily Grossman.

Chunko'.

 

[myturn]

Isaac Asimov.

I have all his books, they are brilliant, and they are just about the only (fiction) books I've ever bought or read, with a few exceptions!

 

[Esox Lucius]

Assuming non wood working???

I like a fair few authors

Conn Igulden
Simon Scarrow
R A Salvatore
Jennifer Fallon
Bernhard Cornwall

All good authors but there are many more

revcently bought a Kindle and it is a really good bit off kit. Love mine to bits...

 

[Benchwayze]

There are pleny of others, but these are top of the list. What do other people like, and why?

Almost anything by Charles Hayward - they don't make 'em like him any more!

'Abso-flippin'-lootleeey'

John

 

[jimi43]

Walter Rose 'The Village Carpenter' Another historical masterpiece. Particularly good on the fascinating social side referring to C19th.

A beautiful insight into not only woodworking practice of a bygone age, but also a great social history of the requirements of various artisans to make a village tick and the delineation of responsibilites...carpenter/joiner vs wheelwright for example.

It also claries what we perceive as romantic and why the disappearance of certain techniques was valid...the "sawpit" being a classic example.

I also love the heirarchy within a jointer's shop...apprentice to master jointer...fascinating stuff.

This is a "must read" book for anybody who tinkers with wood...and a very pleasing and gentle book.

Jim

 

[Sawyer]

It also claries what we perceive as romantic and why the disappearance of certain techniques was valid...the "sawpit" being a classic example.

Yes. There is no such thing as 'the good old days'. The saw-pit is one of the many things whose passing we should not lament. I've done a lot of pure hand work in my time and whilst I enjoy it - it's hard graft and has made me realise just how much of our beloved craft was in fact, unrelenting sweat, toil and drudgery.

Also engrossing, is Rose's description of making and setting up water pumps: but the work sounds horrible. Lots more drudgery, followed by the setting up, in dark, damp and dangerous conditions.

Doubt if many modern-day carpenters would fancy being (by default) the village undertaker either.. Even Rose himself hated that aspect of the work.

By the way, anybody interested in starting a thread devoted to woodworking history? I'm fascinated by it.

 

[jimi43]

By the way, anybody interested in starting a thread devoted to woodworking history? I'm fascinated by it.

Go for it! I would be interested in joining in! 8)

The pump story is fascinating...the entire village relied on these pumps for water and hence the skill and accuracy of the makers....

I don't want to spoil the story for those wishing to read the book...which is highly recommended but to think that the join relied on the skill of the joiner...and the availability of the brawn and innocence of the guy willing to join the two bits...in situ...

It's simply mind-boggling!

I look forward to your thread Sawyer...

Jim

 

[Sawyer]

Go for it! I would be interested in joining in! 8)

The pump story is fascinating...the entire village relied on these pumps for water and hence the skill and accuracy of the makers....

I don't want to spoil the story for those wishing to read the book...which is highly recommended but to think that the join relied on the skill of the joiner...and the availability of the brawn and innocence of the guy willing to join the two bits...in situ...

It's simply mind-boggling!

I look forward to your thread Sawyer...

Jim

History thread coming soon to a computer near you......

On pumps, subsequent to reading Rose, I discovered the unpublished diary of a Northamptonshire carpenter & joiner between 1768 and 1782, who also noted the difficulty of getting the pump joints perfect. The merest leak in the wood, cloth and tallow joint and the pump would work badly, or not at all. As he (John Clifton) put it 'All day today trying to drive the Devil from the pump' How colourful can you get?!

 

[Orcamesh]

Well for me, I collect books too, and sometimes I even read them! :lol:

But I think that yes, Ernest Joyce is a crackin book but so is Robert Wearing ("The Essential Woodworker" and "The Resourceful Woodworker") as these two books are so clear and easy to follow on making techniques and also useful jigs needed in the workshop. I am using them now with my current project. I can't recommend them enough and they are reasonably cheap books too (paperbacks).

Another I would list is "Planecraft - Hand Planing by Modern Methods", although it is far from modern (circa 1954 for the final 6th edition). This is by C.W. Hampton & E. Clifford. Out of print now so only available second hand. But this is a bible for handplanes.

cheers
Steve

 

[mickthetree]

I have woodworking books than you can shake a clifton plane at, but each and everyone has a gem in there. A little tit bit or way of doing something not considered before.

 

[Jacob]

Most essential reading of them all is 'The Wheelright's Shop' IMHO. Not just for the wheelright stuff, interesting though that is, but more for the insight into "tradition" i.e. that huge reservoir of unwritten (and often unspoken) knowledge about how to do things.
It's a feature of many (most?) human activities - knowledge and skill developed and refined anonymously, over many years, in the field. Not conservative in itself; continually developing; but highly vulnerable to change; an invisible asset easily lost when firms, organisations, other institutions (British Rail, NHS etc?) , are subject to change.
Luckily we still have plenty of old woodwork available to look at!