Woodworking in Estonia

by Ants Viires; translation by Mart Aru You can download an excerpt from this book here. It’s one of Roy Underhill’s three favorite woodworking books, but you can’t buy a copy for love or money. Translated into English without the author’s permission in the late 1960s, “Woodworking in Estonia” has been a cult classic ever since it first surfaced. It is, according to Underhill, “one of the best books on folk woodworking ever” and covers the entire woodworking history of this small Northern European nation from pre-historical times through occupation by the Germans and Soviets up through Estonian independence. The author, Ants Viires, devoted his life to recording the hand-tool folkways of his country without a shred of romanticism. Viires combined personal interviews and direct observation of work habits with archaeological evidence and a thorough scouring of the literature in his country and surrounding nations. If all this sounds like a dry treatise, it’s not. “Woodworking in Estonia