The Handbook of Forgotten Skills: Timeless Fun for a New Generation is a beautifully illustrated, step-by-step guide to a variety of “old-school” skills and crafts that many people don’t often learn nowadays.
The book’s idea is to “turn the clock back to a simpler time” by teaching hands-on skills in areas like crafting, cooking, building, and playing — skills you can do without screens or high-tech tools.
Each chapter provides clear, illustrated steps for how to do a given skill, along with a bit of history or context about that skill.
Some of the Skills Covered
Here are a few examples of the kinds of skills and projects the book teaches:
How to tie knots
Make a bird feeder
Write a thank-you note
Make a pie
Build a campfire
Use a compass
Wrap a gift with brown paper and string
Sew by hand
Grow tomatoes
Fix a flat bicycle tire
Make refrigerator pickles
Sew buttons, mend socks
Make lemonade
Grow and dry herbs
Make natural dyes
Skip stones
Start quilting
Perform coin tricks
Fold paper aeroplanes
Explore photography