Scott Landis Workshop book review

[Von]

I bought a copy of Scott Landis' Workshop book for vacation reading and finished it.

The page linked to on Lost Art Press above gives a pretty good summary: it's a survey of a number of historical (early American) and contemporary (1991) shops. It's not a how to book on designing/building a shop, but more of an ideas book. It did appeal to the "shop voyeur" in me - I like seeing other people's shops and how they work.

At this point, it's been over thirty years since the book was originally published (1991) and while it was republished in 2021, that just added a new foreword by Roy Underhill. So the book is feeling fairly historical at this point - the shops, with their lack of battery tools, CNC machines, track saws, and other more modern tools, plus the use of some black and white photos, make it feel like a workshop history book at this point. Technology discussions are also very dated, e.g. there is no mention of LEDs in the discussion of lighting, nor mini-splits in the discussion of HVACs, and CNCs are only mentioned in industrial settings.

My take is if you enjoy shop tours with a bit of nostalgia mixed in, you'll enjoy the book. If you are looking for guidance on designing a modern workshop, it will offer some ideas, but is far from comprehensive.