Sunset Basic Woodworking Illustrated

This book gives a nice overview of woodworking. There's not a lot of detail, so you should plan on purchasing additional books if you want depth. The book does a nice job of covering many aspects of woodworking: from setting up a shop to using each hand and power tool to lumber selection and finishing.At first, it's almost overwhelming because the illustrations (which are quite well done) and the text cover every square inch of every page. There's probably more information packed into this book than other books twice as long.If you're just getting in to woodworking, this is a good book to start with because it gives you a good sense of what you can do, what tools you'll need and the skills you'll need. After you're done leafing through it, you can use it later on as a broad reference.

This book goes over all of the basic woodworking techniques. It includes all the tools and how to use them, joining techniques, finishing, planning, and the basics of furniture making. These are the best illustrations I've seen so far. There are no plans in this book though. For plans, check out Sunsets "Woodworking Projects", and Reader's Digest's "Woodworking Room by Room". I couldn't think of a better way to spend .