Book Review and Taunton Press Rant (long)

Re: LV Med Shoulder Plane is a Poor Smoother

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>That title line got my attention.:-)JR

Re: LV Med Shoulder Plane is a Poor Smoother

Todd Stock

>Have not heard Medevac or ground ambulances all day, so the shock must have been something less than finding you've made two right legs for your latest project, eh?

Re: LV Med Shoulder Plane is a Poor Smoother

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Heck no Todd...having met you I knew it either was a misspost or a browser glitch:-) After reading it I was reminded of your sense of humor and your ability to make spot on comments.JR

No offense taken

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA, the rain's here

>This has been a useful conversation, and thank you for taking the thread in this direction, Barb. In retrospect, I may have been unfair to the book: I was indeed reviewing the book I hoped to find inside those covers, not the one I found there. I will try to be more fair in my future rants...though I will rant when I deem it fittin'.

Mark Harrison asks, "What market demographic wants a coffee table book on workshops?" I'm related to part of that market demographic. My brother, whom I love dearly, subscribes to Fine Woodworking AND Fine Homebuilding, but I don't think he's created one shaving with the toolkit I gave him some years back. He just loves reading about the subjects. I can easily see him buying this book, though he'll probably wait until it shows up on the remainders table. Works for him; it would drive me over the edge, like reading about, um, well I'd best stop here. I get a little twitchy if I don't do something in the shop at least once a week.

Never work

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA, the rain's here

>I don't know if this is true in other parts of the world, but I think Americans are taught to think that we're all participants. To openly label a book as being for people who never actually do anything in the shop - it'd be like Monday Night Football advertising itself as being for people who are too lazy or fat to play football.

Bill, who means NO disrespect for people who watch Monday Night Football, especially the many of either gender who are fit enough to puree him.

:~).......

Barb Siddiqui - Wenatchee, WA

>"...though I will rant when I deem it fittin'."

Thanks, Bill Houghton. I'm not able to keep up with all the posts on the boards anymore, but I'll pay special attention to yours after this exchange, because you seem like a fair and thinking individual. May you always have your health and a shop to do real work in.

Celebrating what?

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>The relevant definition of "Celebrating" is: To extol or praise? More later...

First let me state that I am not steaming mad about this. More mildly irritated. If I have been less than delicate in my criticism than I apologise for any offense that this has unintentionally caused. Even so, I renewed my FWW subscription following my purchase of this book so it's not that I have an axe to grind (so to speak).

I wont speak for others here but the ever increasing amount of marketing of all kinds our generations are all so bombarded with has caused me to tend to self-edit as I read things to get to the gist of whatever it is that I happen to be reading. I'm sure many of you have done the same thing. So I have to admit that the sub-title passed me by when I bought this book and to be honest, it was only drawn to my attention by your prompting.

What I saw was "The Workshop: blah blah blah" from Taunton Press. No doubt a case of unconscious self editing as described above. Still, shame on me for not comprehending all that I had read but to be honest, I doubt I was the only one that missed it.

Anyway, back to the definition of "Celebrating" for a moment. Is this book really a "Celebration" of "The Workshop"? Or is it a "Celebration" of famous -- well alright, somewhat well known (to non-woodworkers) -- workshop owners? Wouldn't the celebration of an object be more about the thing itself?

I'm not intending this to be an exercise in sophistry. I think given the sub-title the editor had better produce what marketing has promised. I do not believe that this is unfair.

BTW, it looks like this book is only a step away from being remaindered judging on the price cut at Amazon. Thus is the fate of the coffee table and "fashion" cook books.