Hammer Head : The Making of a Carpenter
By Nina MacLaughlinNina MacLaughlin spent her twenties working at a Boston newspaper, sitting behind a desk and staring at a screen. Yearning for more tangible work, she applied for a job she saw on Craigslist-Carpenter's Assistant: Women strongly encouraged to apply-despite being a Classics major who couldn't tell a Phillips from a flathead screwdriver. She got the job, and in Hammer Head she tells the rich and entertaining story of becoming a carpenter.
Writing with infectious curiosity, MacLaughlin describes the joys and frustrations of making things by hand, reveals the challenges of working as a woman in an occupation that is 99 percent male, and explains how manual labor changed the way she sees the world. We meet her unflappable mentor, Mary, a petite but tough carpenter-sage ("Be smarter than the tools!"), as well as wild demo dudes, foul-mouthed plumbers, grizzled hardware store clerks, and the colorful clients whose homes she and Mary work in.
Whisking her readers from job to job-building a wall, remodeling a kitchen, gut-renovating a house-MacLaughlin examines the history of the tools she uses and the virtues and varieties of wood. Throughout, she draws on the wisdom of Ovid, Annie Dillard, Studs Terkel, and Mary Oliver to illuminate her experience of work. And, in a deeply moving climax, MacLaughlin strikes out on her own for the first time to build bookshelves for her own father.
Hammer Head is a passionate book full of sweat, swearing, bashed thumbs, and a deep sense of finding real meaning in work and life.
Buy Hammer Head : The Making of a Carpenter at Attic books in Nairobi Kenya.
Book details
- Hardcover
- 224 pages
- English
- 0393239136
- 9780393239133
About Nina MacLaughlin
nina maclaughlin was Read More about Nina MacLaughlin
More Books By Nina MacLaughlin
People who bought this also bought
Early Detection: Women, Cancer, and Awareness Campaigns in the Twentieth-Century United States
Used Book
Mastering the Zone : The Art of Achieving Superhealth and Permanent Fat Loss
Used Book
Never Read a Newspaper at Your Desk: The Fundamental Principles of Business
Used Book
A World of Ideas : Conversations with Thoughtful Men and Women about American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future
Used Book
25 Ways to Win with People: How to Make Others Feel Like a Million Bucks by John C. Maxwell
New Book
Where Dreams Die Hard : A Small American Town and Its Six-man Football Team
Used Book
The Grandparents Handbook : Games, Activities, Tips, How-Tos, and All-Around Fun
Used Book
The Roaring 2000s : Building the Wealth and Lifestyle You Desire in the Greatest Boom in History
Used Book
Internet Prophets: Enlightened E-Business Strategies for Every Budget
Used Book