Cool Tools

Praise for Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities: "There is something magical in the book's juxtaposition of stuff, folklore and product reviews ..." - New York Times "This may well be the greatest catalog of all-time..." - Engadget "The result is something more than just a paper-bound list of awesome objects. It's a tool itself." - Wired "This wonderful book is so much more than hardware and electronics however, this is 472 pages of inspired genius." - Time Out "It's 460+ full-color pages of ear-to-ear grinning, hours of ooh-ing and aah-ing, and years of repetitive page-turning." - GeekDad "It is like sitting with the old Sunday funnies, slowly poring over the colorful illustrations and finding surprises on every page." - The Joiner's Apprentice "A real geek's geek-guide to tools." - American Design and Master-Craft Initiative "Guaranteed you will want 4,000 things from this huge catalogue." - The Coast "What a knockout! Book of the year!" - Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons "When this fabulous, amazing, unputdownable book arrived at my studio I immediately spent two and a half hours in it, and then the next morning passed another three-hour stint of 'Wow - look at this! I could do that!' This book is more exciting - in both what it actually offers and what kind of life it suggests - than anything I've read for a very long time. It's an outstanding achievement in every sense - content, design, and quality. - Brian Eno, musician, artist "Flipping through Cool Tools is a completely different experience from reading the same material online. Long live dead trees!" - David Pescovitz, Boing Boing "If this doesn't solve some large part of your Christmas shopping challenges, you need a different set of people to whom you give Christmas presents. The book itself (a real print 463-page glossy-stock oversizer) is great either for young people starting a home, or geezers who are in touch with their youth who might want to be shocked and reminded why so much of their take-control-of-your-own-life life is the way it is, or somebody who just could use a striking coffee-table conversation-starter/stopper. And then there are the hundreds and hundreds of amazing things - "tools" defined extremely widely and deeply as stuff that really works reviewed by people who've actually used them - to give you more gift ideas." - Joel Garreau, The Washington Post, author of Edge City and Radical Evolution "I don't know an adjective large enough to do it justice." - Michael Litchfield, Fine Homebuilding "I love it. A worthy successor to the Whole Earth Catalog." - Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography "This is a roundup of over 1500 tool reviews with incredibly useful tips and how-tos covering just about everything you can imagine. On one page there will be a recommendation for a great truck (Toyota pickup) on another they'll be tips on learning how to swim properly (it's all about the stroke length). This is, without a doubt, my favorite book to come out in 2013." - Sal Cangeloso, Geek.com "The Cool Tools book was sitting on the counter of the bar when an old boatbuilding friend stopped by and immediately became immersed in it. His exact words: "I GET this! There's no buttons to press!" - George Dyson, author of Turing's Cathedral "Best coffee table books = size of coffee table. Kudos for the beautiful Cool Tools collection." - Scott McCloud, cartoonist "Right now, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 ... just grab a copy of Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. It's 460+ full-color pages of ear-to-ear grinning, hours of ooh-ing and aah-ing, and years of repetitive page-turning. After it arrived at my door, I lost almost two full hours in its pages before realizing just how much time had elapsed ... and this was me just skimming the various sections and randomly jumping from item to item. Since then, I've lost a few more hours as I've started to methodically tackle specific sections that are relevant to a few special projects that interest me (right now)." - James Floyd Kelly, GeekDad "Most catalogs are short stories. This one is a catalog novel." - Mark Pauline, Survival Research roboticist "Covering topics from hand tools to adhesives, organizational oddments, bicycles that double as chainsaws, beer brewing, mushroom growing, milling and fabricating, and so much more, it's enough to make your brain hurt with all the ideas for projects." - Michael Una, Inventables "Bravo for this mega catalog. Back to the future!" - Steven Leveen, CEO founder of Levenger's "I find myself not only flabbergasted at the size and extent of this achievement but happily awash in the feeling I used to get from the Whole Earth Catalogs; that all may not be right with the world, but that it could be." - Jim Woodring, illustrator and cartoonist "The glorious Cool Tools is like my dream update of the Whole Earth Catalog." - Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes "Multiple head asplosions on every page. Amazing!" - Mark Laidlaw, science fiction author "Love you, Wirecutter, but we're breaking up while I work through this tome." - Luke Pebler, actor "Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities reminds me of the engineering catalogues I read at my grandfather's house." - Steve Remington, Chronicinfoholic.com