Andrea Brugi

If you were looking for a regular woodworking book, where you can find practical projects to use around the house with wood that you can find at your local hardware store, you have chosen the wrong book. Woodworking: Traditional Craft for Modern Living by Andrea Brugi and Samina Langholz is for the person with found wood pieces, like driftwood, or reclaimed wood, such as from a barn, or some other unique piece of wood.

Created as kind of a half guide, half design book, the authors have showcased their work in an entertaining and attractive manner. Although most of the projects can be completed by beginners, this is in not a beginners guide to woodworking.

The first part of the Introduction is “Confluence of Minds” where the authors explain how they came together on woodworking. “Broken is Beautiful” follows about the unique pieces of wood they choose.

Working With Wood is next covering three sections, Stories of Wood, Stories of Tools, and Techniques. The Projects follow in four sections, Found Wood, Reclaimed Wood, Solid Wood, and Fine Wood. Each section offers 5 projects.

Inspiration And Context

The book includes a lot of the authors’ ideas and beliefs about wood and woodworking. There is a great deal of design discussion and philosophy behind how they use wood and the pieces they choose. This can help you understand where the authors are coming from when they chose the right piece of wood or the right project.

Throughout the book, the pictures beautifully capture the wood and the projects. While there are many pictures of various steps in the process I wouldn’t classify them as the kind of picture that shows you how to do that step. The pics are more to show you at what point you will be when working on that step.

The projects themselves are a good mix. There are decorative (wall hangings, keychain, etc.) and practical projects too (like a table, chopping board etc.). This will be an excellent book for anyone wanting to be a bit more artistic and needing inspiration.

Reviewed for LnkToMi iRead in response to a complimentary copy of the book provided by the publisher in hopes of an honest review.… (más)