Root Simple is 10 Years Old

...got a lot of offers to write a sequel (or just another version of the same book for bigger publishers!). We ended up writing a how-to book for Rodale called Making It. Thank You! Root Simple is a group effort and there are many people to thank: our web designer Roman Jaster and our logo designer Eric Thomason. Caroline Clerc did the cute cartoons that adorn our masthead. And we thank our publishers Process Media and Rodale. We’ve also met many fin...

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Being the Change: Peter Kalmus Book Appearances

...r shows you how to slash your fossil fuel use to 1/10 the average and still live like royalty. If you’d like to hear Peter speak you have two chances: Wednesday Aug 9, 7:00pm: Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena Friday Aug 11, 7:30pm: The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles Hope to meet some Root Simple readers at Peter’s talks!...

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By Hand and Eye

...r instance, and the shelf spacing came from an exercise on page 131 of the book. Far from being restrictive, I found the principles in Walker and Tolpin’s book liberating. I now had a starting point for any design project. For modern folks it’s difficult to imagine working without a ruler. Walker and Toplin explain, Instead of asking, “How high is this base dimension in inches?” pre-industrial artisans would have asked, “How tall is this base in p...

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Make Your Own Furniture

...rabbit hole deeper than those weird Q Anon folks. From the Lost Art Press book, The Anarchist Design Book. My Trad Life If hand tools are your thing or if, like me, you use a blend of hand tools and power tools, Lost Art Press has some beautiful and useful books one of which I used to make a desk for Kelly. I’d also recommend By Hand and Eye and Mortise and Tenon Magazine if trad design floats your boat. Measured shop drawings for American furnit...

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What we think about when we try not to think about global warming

...ers–look at CostCo alone! How could we not be doomed? And then I read this book–and now I’m not so sure anymore. Because Stoknes addresses the realm of spirit in Part 3. Given the PowerPoint-ready stolidity of the first two parts of the book, it really surprised me that he went there. And at the same time, it was exciting to find an ally in an unexpected place, to find these more radical notions rising out of such a practical footing. What does he...

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