Read How To Sharpen Pencils: A Practical And Theoretical Treatise On The Artisanal Craft Of Pencil Sharpening For Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants (2012)
How To Sharpen Pencils: A Practical And Theoretical Treatise On The Artisanal Craft Of Pencil Sharpening For Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
"How to Sharpen Pencils" is nonpareil. It has sharpened my appreciation for craftsmanship in all things and pointed me to what must be an incredibly rewarding hobby. (Save, perhaps I think, artisanal chandlering.) "Artisanal" is a word much bandied nowadays among elites, but in this modest treatise you will find a blue-collar spirit and workmanlike appreciation for the job well-done that made America great. Never again will I deign to analyze engineering stuff with a mechanical pencil or machine-sharpened Ticonderoga. It'll be Palomino Blackwings and an El Casco for me. And maybe one day, real professional sharpenings. Thank you David Rees for this special book. I was debating my rating of this book as I read it. Initially I was absolutely convinced it deserved 4 stars, but the last few chapters had some turns of phrases that I just didn't like and which stuck with me as I kept reading. It's like when you have a piece of cake and it tastes really awesome and then you bite down on an eggshell and you can keep eating but the paranoia and unpleasantness of the eggshell experience lessens your enjoyment-- hence three stars. I liked this book. It was a fun read and surprisingly I learned some things about pencil sharpening that I didn't know before. It was also a very quick read, with lot's of handy step-by-step guides to sharpening with different tools. Also, the pencil point protecting system was absurd, but I could actually see being useful if you were going to take an exam and there were no pencil sharpeners in the room so you had to pre-sharpen your pencils and make sure they stayed sharp. The biggest issue I had with this book is that there was no section on resharpening a pencil as all chapters appears to assume you were starting with a virgin pencil. Does the technique differ if a pencil has already been sharpened? At what length do you discard the pencil, i.e. when is it no longer worth it to use your energy to keep sharpening the same pencil? Perhaps if there is a second edition Rees can further expand on these questions.
What do You think about How To Sharpen Pencils: A Practical And Theoretical Treatise On The Artisanal Craft Of Pencil Sharpening For Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants (2012)?
Surprisingly entertaining and informative. I will never sharpen pencils the same again!
—jesse
Practical, instructive, important and hilarious. What more can we ask of a slim book?
—pandmsh
I didn't expect it to be so dryly & literally about how to sharpen pencils.
—dudi
The first bit of nonfiction I've read in a bit. Highly recommended.
—tayla
