Over the Counter # 258

What books caught my eye this week as they passed over the library counter and under my scanner? This week it's all about making...

First up is Homemakers by Brit Morin

From the publisher, Harper Collins:

"From “Silicon Valley’s Martha Stewart” comes a new manifesto for the modern homemaker in the digital age.

Over the past three generations, the rules of homemaking and our very notions of what a homemaker is and does have radically changed. We are still a nation of makers, but we are crafting and creating beyond the home, in both the analog and digital worlds. And in the next ten years, “making” and “homemaking” will evolve further. Tomorrow’s women will find themselves actually manufacturing everything from decor to clothing, from right inside their homes.

In Homemakers, Brit Morin, founder of the wildly popular lifestyle brand and website Brit + Co., reimagines homemaking for the twenty-first century. While today’s generation thrives in the virtual world, they like to work and create in the physical world. Morin inspires you to combine the best of analog and digital, to help you reconnect with your inner creative child-the one who used to love to draw, to build, and to play-to make your home a more creative, functional, and beautiful place. Full of captivating, colorful spreads, step-by-step DIYs, tips, and unique ideas, Homemakers explores a range of domestic skills room by room in a house, from cooking advice in the kitchen to health and beauty tips in the bathroom. Simple, beautiful, and stylish, it offer ideas for creative living to encourage and enable the digital generation to make."

Next up is Maker Dad: Father Daughter Projects by Mark Frauenfelder.

From the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:

"As the editor in chief of MAKE magazine, Mark Frauenfelder has spent years combing through DIY books, but he’s never been able to find one with geeky projects he can share with his two daughters. Maker Dad is the first DIY book to use cutting-edge (and affordable) technology in appealing projects for fathers and daughters to do together. These crafts and gadgets are both rewarding to make and delightful to play with. What’s more, Maker Dad teaches girls lifelong skills—like computer programming, musicality, and how to use basic hand tools—as well as how to be creative problem solvers. The book’s twenty-four unique projects include:

• Drawbot, a lively contraption that draws abstract patterns all by itself • Ice Cream Sandwich Necklace • Friendstrument, an electronic musical instrument girls can play with friends • Longboard • Antigravity Jar • Silkscreened T-Shirt • Retro Arcade Video Game • Host a Podcast • Lunchbox Guitar • Kite Video Camera

Innovative and groundbreaking, Maker Dad will inspire fathers to geek out with their daughters and help girls cultivate an early affinity for math, science, and technology."

(Over the Counter is a regular feature at A Bookworm's World. I've sadly come the realization that I cannot physically read every book that catches my interest as it crosses over my counter at the library. But... I can mention them and maybe one of them will catch your eye as well. See if your local library has them on their shelves!)