<Edit Note:  I rambled.  For those of you that want the facts and just the facts, here’s the link:  http://www.stoutbooks.com/cgi-bin/stoutbooks.cgi/index>

Now and again the subject of good books on woodworking, furnituremaking, design, furniture styles and history, techniques, etc., comes up — and in response, many of the same excellent titles are mentioned (Joyce’s “Encyclopedia,” for example).  On the other hand, I, for one, am occasionally left wanting, either unable to find or unable to recommend a book or resource on a specific issue.  And since most of us are self-taught, books are often the only or most economical way of learning about these subjects.

As a personal example, I’ve been trying to find some good reference materials on furniture design and drawing skills (for brainstorming and presentations), and it seems that I can’t find just the “right” book(s).  They’re either too limited or badly written or all of the above.

Anyway, my point:  Last week I was visiting San Francisco, and while wandering downtown I literally stumbled (those damn hills!) into William Stout Architectural Books.  Wow!  Two stories of store, packed to the gills with architecture, design, drawing, technical, blah, blah, blah books, including furniture!  After about 45 minutes of wiping drool off my chin, my bored friends dragged me out of the store.

Anyway, I went back the next day.  While most of the books available are on  architectural subjects, there are many that meet furnituremakers’ and woodworkers’ needs.  For example,

SPLINTIE:  Remember how, a month ago, we were talking about how to add patinas to copper and incorporate that into furniture?  Well, there was a huge manual, with photos and formulas, about how to apply various patinas to nearly every type of metal.  I almost bought it, but my suitcase space was limited (and the book is big!).

I DID pick up a couple of good books on perspective drawing, and one titled “Human Dimension & Interior Space,” by Panero and Zelnik, which has only just recently come back into availability on Amazon.com.  (I’d looked it up before, but they said it was out of print; checking today, I see it’s “available” again — but only 3 copies left.)

Anyway, I’m not an employee or associate of the bookstore, but in the spirit of passing on good resources when you come across them, I thought I’d supply the web link.  Even if you can find the books cheaper, elsewhere, they can be very helpful in locating just what you need — nothing worse than bad search engines.  And for those of you that find books helpful when learning, I think it’s a pretty good resource:

http://www.stoutbooks.com/cgi-bin/stoutbooks.cgi/index

David