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A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
RULES FOR DATING MY DAUGHTER: THE MODERN FATHER’S GUIDE TO GOOD PARENTING
Rules For Dating My Daughter: The Modern Father’s Guide to Good Parenting by Mike Dawson Uncivilized Books 2016, 160 pages, 6.0 x 0.5 x 8.8 inches, Paperback
Rules For Dating My Daughter is a slice of life. It gives glimpses into the domestic and professional life of cartoonist and father Mike Dawson, as he navigates earning a living, finding creative inspiration, and raising children (together with his wife).
The book intersperses mundane everyday experiences, told in illustrated diary form, with comics where he tackles massive issues: climate change, the scale of history, the ethics of eating meat, gun violence, and modern feminism. The shifts aren’t jarring because ultimately this is a collection about parenthood. Global issues like environmental change are made to feel personal, now that Dawson is responsible for two young lives.
The central questions — how to be a good person, and how to raise good people — are universal. Dawson tackles these with disarming honesty and attention to detail, whether he’s teaching his daughter how to play Minecraft or wrestling with making his kids do something he’s not willing to do himself. In its quiet way, Rules For Dating My Daughter is a refreshing change from lots of pop culture depictions of fatherhood. It shows how hard parenting can be, and how easy it is to get lost in both abstract big-picture stuff and mundane trivialities.
– Christine Ro
A MASTER OF MINIATURE MODEL-MAKING SHARES HIS HARD-EARNED SECRETS
Model-Making: Materials and Methods by David Neat Crowood Press 2008, 176 pages, 8.5 x 0.5 x 11.0 inches, Hardcover
I first discovered David Neat’s work via his website where he delves deeply into all sorts of fascinating interests, from furniture design to natural history to art. Mainly what drew me there was his extensive tutorials on all aspects of miniature model-making. The amount of content he’s posted is staggering, as is the quality of everything. Read comments about David’s site (or this book) and you will hear from seasoned pros, surprised by how much they’ve learned from David’s work.
Model-Making: Materials and Methods collects some of David’s best content from the site. While only 176 pages, this book manages to cram in a lot of eye-opening tips and techniques for building miniatures. David comes from the theater set-building world and teaches design and model-making, mainly with theater, TV, and movie models in mind, but the techniques in this book can be applied to all forms of model-making, from dioramas and dollhouses to tabletop miniature games and train layouts. Chapters cover model construction, molding and casting, working with metals, creating surfaces and textures (one of David’s strong suits), and finishing techniques.
I love a book that has so much to offer, you can simply poke your head into it for a few minutes and you’ve added a few more wrinkles to your brain by the time you put it down. Model-Making: Materials and Methods is such a book.
