Book and DVD Reviews

The editor for both Popular Woodworking and Woodworking magazines, Chris Schwarz, has published his first book: Workbenches: from Design and Theory to Construction and Use. Over the years I've become a fan of Mr. Schwarz's; he's helping bring the hand tool element back to the over "powered" woodworking magazines of the last two decades. For the last many years, magazines have disappointed me again and again with their over-"powered" approach to absolutely everything. For example, if you wanted to do dovetails they preached the use of a $400 router accessory over simple hand cut craftsmanship. I don't do enough dovetails to warrant purchasing one of those accessories, even if I wanted one, so that approach has always irked me.

Mr. Schwarz has been quietly advocating a return to a more simple approach to woodworking... one that does not preclude the use of power tools, but neither does it ignore centuries of tradition and process.