DETAILS: Paperback: 416 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (April 2002) Language: English

This book Aldren Watson is an excellent primer for anyone interested in woodworking with hand tools. Clear illustrations identify tool particulars and correct usage and maintenance of each. All woodworking hand tools from hand planes to screwdrivers are included; the index listing essential hand tools for any workshop is especially useful. It has an excellent coverage of Western Hand tools but not of Japanese which may come as a disappointment to few who prefer the latter more to the former.

The amount of illustrations is quite generous and very useful and gives exactly the right amount of detail in a way that photos can't. But the best part is the author's wonderful writing style, which really conveyed a sense of the timeliness and pleasure of woodworking, even when describing such mundane things as taking measurements, the author has a great knack of focusing on the human aspect of the process, the decisions that need to be made and the emotions that the wrong and the right decision evoke.  This is a book that could sell itself if you had a chance to open it up.