How to Build Impossible Things

Like sitting in a room with Mark and hearing the best stories in the world, wound up with wisdom, craft, and hard-won philosophy – Burkhard Bilger * The New Yorker *A brilliantly engaging storyteller, laugh-out-loud funny, loving, cheekily smug … An enjoyable read on making, inventing and what might contribute to a life worth living – Julie MehretuMark is an amazing polymath - and an Olympic-level aesthete. Unlike many polymaths and aesthetes, though, when he gets up in the morning, it’s to make real, physical things - including this book – Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director, Google NYCOn a job site Mark makes irreverent banter while scribbling measurements on the back of pizza box as works of astonishing complexity and precision materializes under his direction. Now he has somehow applied this same deceptively offhand but exacting craft to unspooling this collection of tales from his ascent to the summit of one of the most demanding construction habitats on earth – David Hotson, architect, Skyhouse and PinnacleWry, laconic and packed with salient life lessons, this is a book that will encourage everyone to attempt to build the life they wish to live * Simple Things Magazine *Who knew Mark Ellison’s handiwork would include a book this exquisite, purposeful, absorbing? How To Build Impossible Things merits reading and rereading — it’s a book with much to teach us all. – Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of HOMELAND ELEGIESMark Ellison is known for building beautiful rooms, but here he has crafted a gorgeous book. This cross between Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Kitchen Confidential contains fascinating insights about working with your hands, the nature of talent, and how to create a meaningful life, whatever your craft is. Oh, and lots of juicy stories of pain-in-the-ass clients. Even if you aren’t handy — I can barely hang a picture frame — you’ll find this book a wonderful read – A. J. Jacobs, bestselling author of THE PUZZLERSturdy advice, delivered with humour and the occasional splinter * Guardian *

Mark Ellison is regarded by many as the best carpenter in New York. A man with an affinity for challenging work, he has designed and constructed some of New York’s most elaborate and expensive homes, and been profiled in the New Yorker. But, as a native of the old steel town Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his route into the building trade and the mastery of a craft was unexpected, moving from construction labourer to helper and finally to carpenter. Now, at the age of sixty, he has written his first book.

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