Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning through Making

Anna "Por-shy-skee" is a materials scientist to the core. We get a full dose of science in every chapter, covering ten different materials in some depth. But fear not! It is all interwoven with her personal trajectory, which is so compelling, I finished the book in two days. (very rare for me!) I am a also a scientist-maker, so even just seeing the title of this book meant I had to get it. But on reading the in-depth interview in Hackspace magazine, and on listening to some of Ploszajski's podcasts ("Handmade"), I was sold. Here is an interesting person who also happens to be poetic, and fantastic at telling stories and coming up with good analogies to explain tricky concepts behind the materials. She also happens to be a woman scientist and does not shy away from describing how bias against women has worn her down, and how the writing of other inspiring iconoclastic women has buoyed her up. My only quibble with this excellent book is that I wish it were longer, and that she had spent more time with the hand-crafters she visited to get more into their psyche and the psyche of the materials they work with.

This book is an intricate weave of materials science, history, personal stories, and a showcase of craftspeople. It is a unique combination, that kept me reading on and wanting more.

This book did exactly what it said it was going to, which was what I would have expected from a fellow scientist. If you are an expert working with any of the materials discussed throughout the book though, then you may be a little frustrated at the introductory nature of Anna's crafting experiences. Hopefully you buy this as you have a general and genuine interest in the positive power of crafts and materials science. Each chapter links a material to an aspect of Anna's life. Sometimes the links are a bit tenuous and the crafting experience does not appear to have any lasting impact, but at other times you see how Anna either learns more about herself, or how the act of crafting provides therapy in difficult times. There are also bits of family and social history as well as background science. Everything really that a polymath would appreciate. However, the words 'bits' and 'introductory' are really what describes this book. I think Anna could have written a whole book just on clay or wood or wool, but she seemed to want to get as many aspects of her life and identity in as possible. I thought that there was also an opportunity to discuss the research into the therapeutic nature of crafting at a psychological/medical level. My other issue is the lack of illustrations. Both crafting and science use diagrams all the time to illustrate structure and process. Anna tried to do this with words, but not very successfully in my opinion. I'm glad I read this book though. It did make me think about how my own relationship with crafts over my longer lifetime and that maybe I should re-visit old interests and try out something new.

It tells stories and through story telling shares science curiosity.

As someone who works between science and craft this book was bound to appeal and did not disappoint! The whole thing was incredibly accessible and I loved the use of memoir to weave the science and its real world application together. You'll see the world in a different way after reading which is something I always love to get out of a book!

I'm not sure if it was the directions the author got from the publisher, or how it was edited - but I found it tedious to get to the real content. Each chapter starts with around 4 pages of personal chat about relatives, school, etc. Then we get to meeting a craftsperson, which might involve cycling there, the chaining-up of the bike. Irritating. The stuff about materials is not special. On steel, no mention of stainless, or the deaths from knife-grinding. Could have been so much better if it was half the size.

A perfect balance of storytelling and science. Enjoyable whether or not you care about materials science.

Interesting blend of popular science and memoir from a material scientist/author/broadcaster/trumpeter/standup comedian who manages to blend all these strands into interesting meditations on life and our relationship with the world around us, through the properties of materials that many people won't give a second thought to. The section on plastics was enlivened with a potted biography of her grandfather, the wool and yarn chapter featured a UK road trip in a camper van, and all of this personal detail makes it easier to digest the sometimes complex descriptions of the materials themselves. If my attention ever flagged, an interesting digression or turn of events livened things up.

Anna introduces herself as a materials scientist, working distantly behind the scenes to make practically everything in modern life possible. After spending years as a 'lab rat', a broken piece of lab glassware brings her to the lab's glass shop for repairs. There, she sees for the first time, a glassworker at his trade. She's stunned at this physical relationship with the material she's always known intellectually, and realizes that most of the world interacts with materials differently than she does as a scientist. That sets her on an adventure to understand, first-hand, the joy hand-crafting almost anything in almost any material. I've had plenty of experience with a range of materials, for practical or pleasurable purpose, and was delighted to see her blossom into a Maker. When I saw a welder and a seamstress deep in conversation about their respective projects, I realized that Makers of whatever sort have more in common with other Makers than with the non-makers. That includes the raw pleasure in the material itself. I saw this first-hand in a silversmith's near-pornographic description of how a raised vessel felt in his hand, and saw it again in Counterpunch , where a typographer relays machinists' romantic descriptions of steel alloys they've known. Her whirlwind tour of materials, from steel and glass, to wood and fiber, brings her in contact with masters of many trades, and recalls her experiences (good, bad, and embarrassingly funny) as they guide her into the basics of their skills. Some of those moment bring back something an instructor in hot glass told me: "What you know how to make doesn't matter as much as what you know how to fix." This is as true in a kitchen as in a foundry or wood shop. In the end, Anna finds what she was looking for: a whole new way to see what her science had already shown her, not a new breadth of experience, but a new way to experience the world around her. She grew as a person, not just seeing the different ways people understood their materials, but in seeing how her scientific knowledge dovetailed with the workshop wisdom. The "journey of growth" is a perennial trope in fiction, but even more wonderful to see in living fact. BTW, I think this book pairs well with