THE TOOL BOOK

Foreword by Nick Offerman, Dorling Kindersley, $45

You’ve seen that look in the boss’s eyes: “Oh, to be a thousand Ks from here. Alone.” And for many men it’s a shed. DK’S gorgeously designed compendium explains how to use more than 200 hand tools, from the dozuki (a sliverthin Japanese cutting instrument) to digital calipers. His foreword positively rhapsodic, Offerman finds “an adze every bit as compelling as Gandalf’s magic sword Glamdring”. He describes the text as “downright Homeric”.