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Mark Frauenfelder

Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World Hardcover – May 27, 2010

by Mark Frauenfelder (Author)

4.0 47 ratings

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From his unique vantage point as editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine, the hub of the newly invigorated do-it-yourself movement, Mark Frauenfelder takes readers on an inspiring and surprising tour of the vibrant world of DIY. The Internet has brought together large communities of people who share ideas, tips, and blueprints for making everything from unmanned aerial vehicles to pedal- powered iPhone chargers to an automatic cat feeder jury-rigged from a VCR.

DIY is a direct reflection of our basic human desire to invent and improve, long suppressed by the availability of cheap, mass-produced products that have drowned us in bland convenience and cultivated our most wasteful habits.

Frauenfelder spent a year trying a variety of offbeat projects such as keeping chickens and bees, tricking out his espresso machine, whittling wooden spoons, making guitars out of cigar boxes, and doing citizen science with his daughters in the garage. His whole family found that DIY helped them take control of their lives, offering a path that was simple, direct, and clear. Working with their hands and minds helped them feel more engaged with the world around them.

Frauenfelder also reveals how DIY is changing our culture for the better. He profiles fascinating "alpha makers" leading various DIY movements and grills them for their best tips and insights.

Beginning his journey with hands as smooth as those of a typical geek, Frauenfelder offers a unique perspective on how earning a few calluses can be far more rewarding and satisfying than another trip to the mall.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Portfolio
Publication date

May 27, 2010
Dimensions

6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

1591843324
ISBN-13

978-1591843320
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this overwrought ode to doing it yourself, Make magazine editor Frauenfelder attempts to forge a deeper connection and a more rewarding sense of involvement with the world by making more of the things his family uses and eats. His DIY projects are varied—organic gardening, building a chicken coop, constructing cigar-box guitars, keeping bees, tutoring his daughter—and not uniformly successful: chickens get devoured by a coyote; the bees subsist on sugar-water handouts; his daughter fails the big math test. (Not to worry, he insists, since accepting mistakes is foundational to the DIY ethos.) Frauenfelder's hand-making procedurals are engaging, but, for him, practicality takes a back seat to spirituality, to living authentically, to grokking the Japanese concept of wabi sabi, the beauty found in an object's imperfections. He often presents DIY as a form of therapy: spoon-whittling isn't about spoons, it's about the calming and focusing effect of spoon-whittling. (And like most therapies, these projects often require lots of disposable income—a thousand dollars for a load of mulch!—and spare time.) People have hobbies because they are interesting and fun; by inflating hobbyism into a belief system, Frauenfelder doesn't add much to their appeal. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"This is a must-read book. Mark has lovingly and candidly documented the complex, myriad, intangible and often very tangible rewards of grabbing the world with both of your hands, and learning how it works."
- Adam Savage, Mythbusters

"What Mark Frauenfelder knows is that making a ukulele out of a cigar box is not just fun (and finally a good use for your thousands of old cigar boxes), it's a way of restringing and retuning your whole life. Buy this book, read it, and then maybe make it into a clarinet. I bet you can!"
- John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require

"Why do otherwise well-adjusted people take to raising chickens in Studio City? What sort of contrarian spends a lot of time and money to kill his own lawn? These may be the projects of one quirky individual, but they point to something universal and true. Human beings find their proper home not in large-scale corporate structures but in the struggle for individual agency. You have to admire the doggedness with which the individuals in Made By Hand try to render their own world intelligible."
- Matthew B. Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft

"Frauenfelder has been at the center of the emerging maker movement, chronicling its rise as an economic force. Here, he describes a parallel evolution: his own embrace of making, as he applies the lessons he's been learning to his own life. It's as inspiring as it is entertaining. You'll never look at your lawn the same again!"
- Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief, Wired Magazine

"Made By Hand is a wonderful, thought-provoking, and timely book that shows us why and how we need to take back control of our lives. Now if only Mark Frauenfelder would put out a version written by hand on paper he made from the trees in his backyard."
- A.J. Jacobs, author of The Guinea Pig Diaries and The Year of Living Biblically

"Made by Hand is an absurdist essay on 'resistentialism,' defined as 'the theory that things have a secret agenda to make us miserable by fighting back against our efforts to use them.' It is the flip-side of self-sufficiency and independence-an example of the ongoing war between HAP (hire a pro) and DIY. Do you give in to the unassailable fact that you have no idea how things work, or do you embark on a quixotic (but potentially enlightening) attempt to figure it out?"
- Errol Morris, Academy Award-winning director of Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control

"Frauenfelder believes - as do I - that the DIY ethic is only partly about the things you produce. It's also about learning how to learn, about connecting with others who share your interests, and about taking pride in your accomplishments. ... I think the book is great, and I encourage you to pick up a copy if you're at all interested in DIY."
-J.D. Roth, Get Rich Slowly

"Made By Hand is a wonderfully inspiring read and makes turning to a make-centric way of life feel not only approachable, but utopian."
-Jaymi Heimbuch, TreeHugger.com

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio; First Edition (May 27, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1591843324
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1591843320
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,291,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,791 in Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement (Books)
- #73,981 in Crafts & Hobbies (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.0 47 ratings

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Mark Frauenfelder

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Mark Frauenfelder is a research director at Institute for the Future and is the founder of the technology and culture website Boing Boing. He was the founding editor-in-chief of Make magazine and Wired.com. He designed Billy Idol's CD covers and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Popular Science, Business Week, The Hollywood Reporter, Wired, and other national publications. A popular public speaker, he has appeared on national radio and television shows to talk about technology and culture, including The Martha Stewart Show and The Colbert Report (twice). He produced IFTF’s explainer video about the blockchain, which has had 4 million views. He's the author of nine books, including The Computer: An Illustrated History. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University and worked as a development engineer in the disk drive sector for five years.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5

47 global ratings

5 star		52%
4 star		23%
3 star		4%
2 star		12%
1 star		9%

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Top reviews from the United States

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C. L. Gonsalves

If at first you don't succeed... then good, you've learned something.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 31, 2010

Verified Purchase

I saw ads for Made by Hand when I attended the recent (2010) Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA. I'm a big fan of Make Magazine, so I ordered the book expecting something good. I was not disappointed.

The book is an almost autobiographical series of stories about the author's various different do it yourself (DIY) projects. Many of these aren't exactly what you'd normally think of as DIY projects. For example, the projects include moving to Rarotonga (in the Cook Islands), killing his lawn, raising chickens, and educating his kids. In some sense, the specific projects doesn't really matter: this isn't a "how to" book that tells you how to accomplish specific projects. Instead it explains the DIY philosophy in general and gives advice that applies to pretty much any kind of DIY project. The more unorthodox DIY projects serve to show how versatile this general advice is.

Probably the main practical piece of advice in the book is: don't be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn, and so without screwing up a few projects you'll never be able to expand your DIY skill-set.

Frauenfelder is also a great writer. The stories were all very engaging. Despite the fact that very few of the projects were things I would have considered doing before, the book not only kept me interested, it even made me at least think about trying some of those things. I probably won't actually raise chickens, but the fact that I not only enjoyed reading about Frauenfelder chicken raising (mis)adventures, and even briefly considered the possibility of doing it myself says something about the quality of his writing.

If you like making things this book is for you. If you like the idea of making things but don't do it (enough) out of fear of screwing things up, this book is even more for you.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

C. L. Yarborough

Enjoyable read about how one geeky computer guy found more breathing room in his life by learning to DIY.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 15, 2012

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this book. I read it when I should have been doing other things.

This book is not a how to get back to the earth book. It is a book about slowing down, about trying things, about risking failure in order to find fulfillment in gaining physical hands on skills in a world where hands on skills are becoming increasingly rare.

His attitude toward DIY is that, for him, it is like the "Slow Food" movement. In the slow food movement, the goal was to slow down and enjoy the process. He decides to slow down and enjoy the process of life, of living with his wife and daughters, of connecting with other people. The method he chooses is to begin DIY projects. He is successful in his goal, though not always successful in his attempts at DIY.

Because of his attempts, though, he finds activities that bring a great deal of joy and meaning to his life. He also connects in deeper ways with his daughters, his wife and his community.

Highly recommended.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Mr Bee

Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning (if you can afford it)

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 2, 2010

Verified Purchase

If you're looking for an earthy, back to nature, WalMart sucks kind of book for people who want to live simpler, less extravagant lives, free from the trappings of rampant consumerism, you might be disappointed. The book seems less about DIY and more about how you can waste a lot of time and money continually botching projects, requiring endless trips to Home Depot. It also gets off on the wrong start from the very first page, which describes Mark and his family moving to the remote tropical island of Rarotonga in the South Pacific; this seems to have a similar message as Eat, Pray, Love - spiritual enlightenment can be yours, but only if you can afford it. This pricey philosophy continues soon after with a chapter on how you can mod your $2000 espresso machine for only a few hundred dollars more - ah, the joys of knowing that you can afford the time and money for the perfect shot of caffeine. Further chapters involve gardening, which was charming enough; beekeeping, which was less so; and raising chickens, which I found rather sad in that his incompetence led to the deaths of several of his - and his daughter's - beloved birds. And finally, taken as a whole, there seems to be no grand philosophical message that you could take with you after reading this book; it just seems like a random collection of things that many of us do routinely every weekend. If you're interested in DIY, find something that interests you, and go find some books that would actually help you to, for example, carve wood, raise chickens, or build cigar box guitars. In the end, you'll find your own personal spiritual reward without having to read about someone else's muddled journey through DIY.

40 people found this helpful

Helpful

A Throw Away Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 23, 2010

Verified Purchase

I won't really throw it away. I will sell it to you though. Interested?

I bought this book based on the recommendation of a popular blogger and I am disappointed that I did. The author Mark Frauenfelder, is a popular blogger as well. As a "Do it Yourselfer", I thought, based on the recommendation that this book would show me some interesting ways to make things less disposable and more permanent. I mistakenly thought it would have some nifty suggestions on how to utilize milk containers or describe how to make a Swiss Army knife out of a bag of peanut shells. But no; instead it was about gardening, raising chickens and bees.

I grew up on a farm so I already know about composting and rotating crops, plant pairing and the like. I also grew up around chickens and their filthy poop, so I'm not interested in their inborn fertilizer capacity. This book might - might appeal to someone who has lived a completely urbanized life, never really seen a starry night out of the city limits, and has taken everything in our convenient, modern life for granted.

Made By Hand is actually pretty depressing to me because the idea behind the book seem to be, the world is doomed and the only people who will survive are the ones who raise their own chickens.

If you have absolutely no experience gardening or any idea of how to raise animals this book may be of interest.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Tikka

A Great Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 16, 2012

Verified Purchase

Both a story about the author's life journey and a book on his brave lifestyle choice.
Very entertaining and touching.
Also good for those interested in "The Good Life" - independant living and survival in a post-materialist world.
A great read !

enquirer

A good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 22, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is an easy and interesting read. It is grounded in the author's experience of tackling 'do-it-yourself' projects, and he is totally open and honest about successes and failures. Reading this book was altogether a pleasing and rewarding experience.

Ken

Entertaining

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 6, 2013

Verified Purchase

Mark explores the ideas of doing it yourself. He delves into everything from gadgets to gardening and is fairly well rounded. Read some of his comments on boingboing.com if you want to get a feel for what is in the book.

Max

Geniales Buch

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on June 23, 2016

Verified Purchase

Der Autor schreibt unterhaltsam. Man bekommt Lust, ebenfalls etwas auszuprobieren.

Empfehle das Buch sehr gern.

Freue mich auf andere Texte von ihm.

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