Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I think the Dummies series really dropped the ball on this one. Woodworking for Dummies is written by a guy that tells you that he wants to start from scratch; later in the introduction he refers to himself as a tool collector and a gear junkie. That might be ok, I thought; surely he'll start from the bottom and explain the basic techniques before he gets into using the specialized equipment - the Dummies books are good at that sort of thing. Right? Wrong. Although there's a whole mini-chapter listing his assumptions - among which he tells you that he assumes that you want to learn woodworking from scratch - he never tells you that the entire book depends entirely on your already having a basement or garage workshop full of power tools. He assumes at every step that you have a table saw, a router, a router table, a compound miter saw, a drill press, a jointer, and a 12' planer. Not once does he mention the simple, traditional way of doing things with handheld tools, except to snidely deride it and say he does it "the faster, easier way." Everything in this book is written for an audience that has already accreted ten thousand dollars worth of power machinery. But here's the catch: how many people do you know that buy that many specialized power tools before knowing how to cut a straight line on a table saw? As far as I'm concerned this book is fairly worthless. Dummies, my faith in you is shaken - I'm returning this book.