What books do you recommend?
Really common question.
This question is usually asked in the context of building and design books, so that’ll mostly (but not entirely!) be my focus here.
FYI, I may point to additional books in the future, but if frequent book recommendations are what you crave, my buddy Ryan has a book recommendation newsletter, as does my sister-in-law, Emily.
Do-It-Yourself Housebuilding: The Complete Handbook and The Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling. Yes, all this information is on the Internet, but sometimes it’s nice to pull the appropriate page from the index, rather than sift through hundreds of results and opinions. Keeps things simple.
A Pattern Language. One of my absolute favorite books. An examination and deconstruction of all the elements that work and don’t work in architectural design. Ever wonder why some spaces feel welcoming and others go curiously unused? This book explains why. See also: A Timeless Way of Building.
The Anarchist’s Design Book. Really anything by Christopher Schwartz. He’s got an enviable, matter-of-fact, communication style and uses it well in presenting a bunch of approachable projects and techniques in furniture making.
While on the subject of approachable furniture making… Donald Judd Spaces. Or really any collection of Judd’s stuff. The Internet is fine for this as well.
Building The Timber Frame House. Good resource, for, well, timber framing. Western style timber framing, anyway. Also illustrates some helpful concepts in regards to joining wood to other wood.
The Complete Guide to Decks. Honestly, probably a half dozen similar books would do. But I grabbed this at a hardware store many years back and have found it useful to skim all the possible configurations of beams and posts and joists and railings.
There’s endless collections of architecture and design, cabins, tiny homes, etc. Some much better curated than others. Many redundant as the same content gets recycled. I won’t try and list the ones I’ve enjoyed here. But if you’re in the market and looking for inspiration, it’s worth exploring Lloyd Kahn’s offerings at Shelter Publications.
The War of Art and Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. Not remotely specific to building, but if you’re in the realm of creative pursuits and managing those projects, and generally just trying to improve your productivity, these are very short and very useful books to motivate things along. Their small size and broad applicability also makes these great gifts.
Honorable mention: I wrote a book on Tools, and while it’s hard to recommend it over the much more useful moving pictures of YouTube, it’s an effective gift for communicating: “I know you like tools, and though I wouldn’t presume to know which tools you might need… I figured this thoughtful book would perfectly encapsulate both a recognition of your hobbies and my appreciation for you.”
Update #1. Only a day later and I remembered a few I’d left out.
A Place of My Own. Micheal Pollan’s second book. About building a small writing cabin on his property. The subtitle these days is “The Architecture of Daydreams” but back in 1997 when the book came out it was a more straightforward “The Education of an Amateur Builder.” Worth reading if only to note all the books he recommends.
How Buildings Learn. Written by the very accomplished Stewart Brand. Basically how our structures evolve alongside society and vernacular. The dialogue that is architecture. Or, as Winston Churchill put it, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”
One Man’s Wilderness. The story of Dick Proenneke’s time in Alaska building his cabin. I’m giving a hat tip to that book here, but the real gem is the four part PBS documentary, Alone In The Wilderness. Most of the footage was shot by Dick on his 16mm wind-up camera. I think I watch it once every couple years.