I picked this up expecting it to be profiles of DIYers ("Makers," as Frauenfelder calls them).  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was more of an autobiography of Frauenfelder's projects, his successes, and - more to the point - his failures.

Mark Frauenfelder is a big name in the DIY world.  The man behind MAKE and CRAFT magazines, founder of Boing Boing (the original zine and the website), and the Man of A Thousand Hobbies.  I saw Frauenfelder recently on The Colbert Report; he brought on a truly wonderful device, which is a box that turns itself off.  You flip a switch on, and a little hand immediately pops out to flip the switch off. Love it!

Frauenfelder writes of his crafting, building, MAKE-ing life with a humor and self-awareness that I wish were more common.  One of his primary contentions is that what keeps people from going DIY is the fear of failure.  He has decided to combat this - a one-man army - by exploring the history of his own failures in depth.  Not to castigate himself, but to illustrate the truism that "you learn more from failure than you do from success."

As true as this message is, it's also unpopular.  I was reading recently about the phenomenon of "helicopter parents."  These are parents who love their children, obviously.  But they are also parents who are apparently terrified that their children might fail.  

Unfortunately, failure is inevitable.  And in Frauenfelder's opinion, desirable.  Failure inspires you to try harder next time.  Failure teaches lessons you never would have learned.  Most importantly, failure is a natural part of life, and the only alternative to failure is a life lived as a slack-jawed couch potato, glued to the television's endless panoply of bright colors and moving shapes.  And is that really a life worth living?  Frauenfelder doesn't think so, and I'm inclined to believe him.

In "Made By Hand" Frauenfelder does a lot less cheerleading for the DIY revolution than you might expect.  He shares his excitement and the pleasure of accomplishment, but he also gives equal air time to his failures, and the factors that lead up to them.  (Hubris, mainly.)

Frauenfelder gardens (and learns the hard way to wash vegetables before eating them).  He raises chickens (and learns about the wiles of the suburban coyote).  He decides to tutor his daughter in math (and fails to give her the test-taking strategy skills she probably needed).  He decides to become a beekeeper (and his family hates and fears the bees).  

Aside from being a funny, clever, educational, and entertaining read, "Made By Hand" is refreshingly honest.  I found myself trying to imagine Martha Stewart writing the same book.  Has Martha Stewart EVER admitted to failure?  Has she ever made anything that didn't turn out 100% perfect on the first try?  Not that I've heard.  And that is why people hate Martha Stewart, and love Mark Frauenfelder.

This is one of those rare books that I want to buy by the pallet-load and press into the hands of complete strangers.  Its message is just that valuable.