Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Woodworking (ISBN 1561587699)

Crisp, great photos, lots of content and pedestrian:
Taunton does an excellent job of producing attractive, well written wide market appeal products. The content of Complete Illustrated Guide is a convenient collection of the same articles you will find in their "Fine Woodworking" magazine. The authors are knowledgable, and very successful in thier space. Unfortunately, in building the mass appeal formula, Taunton had to give up anything edgy, its all vanilla and no "rocky road". A recent copy of Fine Woodworking for example rated central dust vacuums. They rated 3 "best" each was from the product line of one of the top three manufacturers each of whom advertise heavily in thier publications. As I recall there is usually one "best" and then others follow. This straddling is what I mean by no edgyness, they are trying to appeal to everyone and offend no one. In the end this approach results in what I believe is the best vanilla product out there and I love to consume what they produce, just have to take it for what it is, mass production. If you have progressed in woodworking to the point where you are becomming an artist or want to learn something new, look here for foundation and elsewhere for creativity. Most folks will benefit from both.

A brillient starter book:
This book is excellant for those people starting out in wood working as it shows what can be done wihtout overwealming the reader. Althrough there is not enougth detail to pick up all the tricks, it does give you enougth basic ideas to be able to get a more advanced book and actually know what it is talking about. On the strength of this book, i will be buying most, if not all, of the Taunton's Illustrated Guides.

Mile wide, inch deep:
I have been trying to find the perfect book for a novice woodworker and this is not it. The word "complete" in the title implies that it is for beginners -- as an experienced woodworker would most likely buy more specialized books -- such as a book just on dovetail joints. For example, it has a chapter on all the different kinds of joints you can make -- which is good for a beginner. But then they have a how-to on using a hollow-chisel mortiser - a machine that no novice has in their shop. They will often show how to do things on upper-end machinery that is out of the price-range or has too large a footprint for a beginner. Some of these things can't be done as well (if at all) with entry-level tools (like cutting down the width of a board with a band saw). So it is good if you want to understand the big-picture world of wood working, but it is equally silly to give quick lessons on how to use upper-end tools that a beginner just wouldn't have. If anyone from Taunton is reading this, it would be great to have a book geared toward the beginner who mostly has bench-top tools and doesn't have tools like jointers and shapers.

What can I add?:
I have been a woodbutcher for many years. I did this as an advocation. Wanted to dedicate serious time to fine furniture, and cabinets. As reviewers who rate this text positively note. "It is a great book for getting started." I have had discussions with woodworkers who have different levels of expertise. They have shared similar information to what I can find in this excellent text. It is criticized for being "pedestrian" and this is actually a good quality. Habits and skills come from practice, making mistakes, and doing what works for me. I have other similar books, They are more cutting edge, but this is seriously a great book for people who want to reduce personal mistakes in building mental skills toward planning and preperation. It is not a simple "how to book" but a mentoring manual.

Greatest Book !!!:
This is the greatest book to learn how to woodturn. You won't be sorry!