I’m not a big fan of the vast majority of newer books on the woodworking market….at all….but I just came across one that is really excellent in my opinion, and I’ve been enjoying it a great deal.

 It’s called ‘The Workshop; Celebrating the place where craftsmanship begins’ by Scott Gibson. Shops, and interviews with a lot of woodworkers, most of them pros, across Canada and the US. Covers the gamut from people using mostly hand tools and very small production, to more industry oriented shops, including one automated shop (I REALLY liked the onculsion of a few shops from that end of the spectrum, because they are often excluded).

The whole thing is terrific, and thought provoking, and all the people profiled look like good people. Taunton should do more books like this one. The only crab is, I would have liked more pictures of the shops….maybe one more page per profile with six more thumbnail views, so you can see the whole shop.

An interesting coincidence for me was, a day after reading the profile of Scott Schmidt, a pro funituremaker, I was stuck somewhere and going through a copy of ‘Woodworking’ magasine (best North American woodworking mag on the market now, IMO), and there was an article on Schmidt, and why he was giving up furnituremaking to become an OR nurse. There’s a whole deep dark discussion there.