HAPPINESS BOOK CLUB
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ecently, I’ve had a yearning to craft or create something new, so I was immediately drawn to this book. It’s a beautifully written account of one man’s journey, making beautiful items over his lifetime. Author Peter Korn learned to build furniture over many years, a creative process that helped him to discover who he was and what a good life really meant to him.
Korn’s process was slow, gradually learning skills and growing in competence, making lots of mistakes and facing many challenges along the way. But, eventually, he was able to design and craft his own pieces, seeing the miracle of ‘a thought made substance’; an idea sketched on paper becoming a real object, imbued with meaning for both the maker and those who interact with his product. Importantly, Korn discovered it’s not the final piece that mattered but the creative process. Fulfilment, he says, comes from creating the table, not the satisfaction of sitting at it.