Review of 'The Case for Working with Your Hands' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
This is a book of two intertwined parts. The author has a background as an academic, but now prefers to work as a motorcycle mechanic. This book reflects this.
The tone of the book changes quickly from the academic language of a PhD thesis to engaging narratives of his work as a mechanic.
Much of the first 50 pages felt like a slog. Most of those pages are dedicated to setting up his argument in the stilted language of academia. It's worth persevering, though.
While the ideas he puts forward of learning by getting wrong, the value of mentorship, the satisfaction of seeing you work in use and thinking with your hands aren't ground breaking, the stories he uses to support these ideas make for great reading.
I very much support his call for reinstating shop class, but I also believe that the much of what he describes can be …
This is a book of two intertwined parts. The author has a background as an academic, but now prefers to work as a motorcycle mechanic. This book reflects this.
The tone of the book changes quickly from the academic language of a PhD thesis to engaging narratives of his work as a mechanic.
Much of the first 50 pages felt like a slog. Most of those pages are dedicated to setting up his argument in the stilted language of academia. It's worth persevering, though.
While the ideas he puts forward of learning by getting wrong, the value of mentorship, the satisfaction of seeing you work in use and thinking with your hands aren't ground breaking, the stories he uses to support these ideas make for great reading.
I very much support his call for reinstating shop class, but I also believe that the much of what he describes can be found outside of the the traditional trades. Many of his stories were familiar to me not because I have a mechanical background, but because of my background in software design and development.