Book Review: Woodworking in Estonia

If you don't know Lost Art Press, they're the publishing imprint started

by Chris Schwarz, former Managing Editor of Popular Woodworking magazine. The press mostly exists to re-print old or lost texts on woodworking, but they also publish books of new content, often with a focus on hand-tool woodworking and furniture building. 

I love their books and I'm a big fan of their mission. I also own a ton of their output so I thought I should start reviewing these books for other woodworkers. Lost Art's books are top-notch in both construction and content, but that quality comes at a price and their books ain't cheap. It's hard to know where to spend your limited shop budget and books often fall toward the bottom of the list, especially pricey books on often obscure topics.

I'll admit, Woodworking in Estonia was a head-scratcher for me. I must have looked at the book a dozen times before I finally pulled the trigger. At $25, it's hardly going to break the bank, but that same money would buy a lot of sandpaper. (Full disclosure: I have no relationship with Lost Art Press and I paid full price for the book). 

Eventually, I did buy the book and it was...unusual. Woodworking in Estonia is actually an ethnography (a scholarly work on a particular culture) and it was written by Ants Viires, an anthropologist who struggled mightily and risked a great deal to document Estonian culture and handcraft in an era when the Soviets were trying to wipe it out. The fact that the book exists at all is something of a miracle. The fact that it's available in English is equally impressive. 

So, did I like the book?  Um, kinda.  

As a scholarly work, it's excellent. The depth, breadth, and organization of the work is beyond criticism. It's clearly written and fully footnoted should the reader ever want to know more on this topic. It's also got plenty of good photos and illustrations, so nothing is left to the imagination. Reading this book, you get a full view of how rural people made solid, often lovely handcrafts with basic tools. It's a further lesson in how much one can get done with some simple tools and little knowledge. Hell, most of the craftsmen in the book didn't even own a plane. They did their planing with axes. I mean...damn. 

As a how-to book, it's decent. It's not meant to be a tutorial on how to make things like board containers, but there's enough detail that you could figure it out if you were already moderately experienced. 

I think the bigger question is, would you want to make the stuff in this book? 

Probably not.

Now, I'm no kind of period furniture snob. As woodworkers go, I'm not very obsessed with furniture and my work tends towards weirder and more artistic stuff. So I'm not disappointed that the book has no new insights into dovetails or smooth planing. Enough ink had been spilled on those topics already. 

But am I likely to make a bent-wood box or an all-wood wagon wheel? Not really--unless you're a client and you want to pay me for the work, then I'm all over it.   

The book's coverage of tools was fascinating and I seriously think I might get an ax and see how many operations I can learn to do with it. But otherwise, this is probably my least favorite book from Lost Art (and I own at least 10). 

If you're the scholarly type, then this really might be the book for you. But that being said, I AM the scholarly type, I still didn't get a whole lot out it.