REPAIR REVOLUTION: How Fixers Are Transforming Our Throwaway Culture
Repair Revolution is the first book to comprehensively introduce the wisdom and practice of repair to a larger audience. The authors believe that every town needs a Repair Cafe, Fixit Clinic, Tool Library or something like it, and Repair Revolution is just the empowering guide for readers who want to start a repair initiative of their own.
Repair Revolution (Paperback) How Fixers Are Transforming Our Throwaway Culture By John Wackman, Elizabeth Knight
9781608686605, 320pp. List Price: 18.95*
* Individual store prices may vary.
Authors John Wackman and Elizabeth Knight are long time Repair Cafes hosts in the Hudson Valley. John founded the first Repair Cafe in New York State in 2013 and later described his role as that of coordinator communicator and cheerleader for Repair Cafes in the Hudson Valley, Catskills and Capital District of New York as well as for the repair movement globally. Elizabeth Knight has become a sustainability activist and community organizer. In 2016 she started Orange County New York's first Repair Cafe which many years on serves people from as many as nineteen towns in two states. She and her team have received certificates of appreciation from county town and village officials. She moved to Jersey City in 2023 and, of course, promptly started a Repair Cafe there which is opening up on April 23rd.
Elizabeth and John believed that every town needs a Repair Cafe, Fixit Clinic, Tool Library or something like it, and Repair Revolution is just the empowering guide for readers who want to start a repair initiative of their own. The book is about much more than Repair Cafes--it is about the way repair initiatives of all kinds build community and awareness about the larger challenges facing our planet.
The Forward Indies Awards are annual awards given to independent publications. Thousands of books are entered each year, and a panel of over 100 librarians and booksellers took part in the judging, narrowing it down to a group of finalists and winners that represent the best books, all independently published, in 55 categories. Repair Revolution received the bronze award in the Hobbies & Home category. Read the announcement HERE.
Repair Revolution is available through your favorite local bookshop or at Bookshop.org, where every purchase supports local bookstores or at Amazon.com. You can also look for it at the library.
ENDORSEMENTS
“The impulse to repair is present in every part of our lives. This book tells the important story of the people leading the repair movement.”
— Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit
“This book delivers good news at two important levels. It chronicles the growing worldwide repair movement (sibling to the Maker movement) in abundant, inviting detail. And it inspires and instructs the actual fixing of things in your life.”
— Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog and author of Maintenance (forthcoming)
“A gold mine of inspiring stories . . . If you want to kick-start the repair revolution in your community, this book is a must-read.”
— Catherine Weetman, host of the Circular Economy podcast and cofounder of Rethink Global
“Fixing something is one of life’s great pleasures. Repair Revolution is an inspirational yet practical primer on how to build and strengthen communities, one reclaimed, repaired, or restored object at a time.”
— David Malki !, author of Wondermark
“Well-researched, articulate, readable, comprehensive, and compelling, Repair Revolution is a very important contribution to the international repair movement and offers extensive resources for taking action.”
— Vita Wells, founder of the Culture of Repair Project
“It’s heartening to see the rise in popularity of Repair Cafes, to witness communities gathering to collectively build resilience, share technical skills, honor value, and celebrate creativity. I hope communities can use this book to continue building support for a repair revolution.”
— Katrina Rodabaugh, author of Mending Matters
“Presents the what, why, and how-to of bringing repair and reuse to every town in the USA.”
— Neil Seldman, president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
AUTHORS
JOHN WACKMAN founded the first Repair Cafe in New York State and now describes his role as that of coordinator, communicator, and cheerleader for Repair Cafes in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, and Capital District of New York, as well as for the repair movement globally.
He has participated in Repair Cafes in the Netherlands and co-presented with Martine Postma at the Drawdown Learn Conference at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. He has presented on community repair at the New York and New Jersey Library Associations’ annual conferences and led a statewide webinar for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. He serves on the board of Sustainable Hudson Valley and is a commissioner for the City of Kingston Climate Smart Commission. John is a recipient of an Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Champion Award.
For nearly three decades, John wrote and produced programming for public television and national cable networks to encourage strength and creativity within communities. With Lightworks Producing Group in New York, he worked on many specials and series, and executive produced the civil rights documentaries You Don’t Have to Ride Jim Crow! and Here Am I, Send Me: The Journey of Jonathan Daniels. For PBS, he created, with host Mary Ann Esposito, the cooking series Ciao Italia, still in production and the longest-running cooking series on television.
Sadly, John passed away on January 8, 2021 leaving a huge hole in the Repair Cafe HV movement and in our hearts. We strive to live up to his example, every day and with every cafe.
ELIZABETH KNIGHT is the author of four books that have been featured in New York magazine, USA Today, The Washington Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Woman’s Day, among other publications. A tea and entertaining expert and the former tea sommelier for the St. Regis Hotel, she was a frequent guest on over fifty nationwide radio and television programs, including WNBC’s Today in New York and the Travel Channel.
For more than twenty years, she managed marketing communications, trade advertising, sales promotion and special events, and visual merchandising for retail stores, wholesale showrooms, and trade shows. Clients included Royal Doulton china, American Express, and Bloomingdale’s, among others.
More recently, she has become a sustainability activist and community organizer. In 2016, she started Orange County, New York’s first Repair Cafe, which, four years on, serves people from as many as nineteen towns in two states. She and her team have received certificates of appreciation from county, town, and village officials. In celebration of Earth Day, Elizabeth founded an annual Too Good to Toss Community Swap, which is visited by hundreds of people who come to shop for free. In October 2018, she organized a pop-up Repair Cafe at the international ReuseConex convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Martine Postma, founder of Repair Café International, was the keynote speaker.
Elizabeth relocated to Jersey City with her husband Roger in late 2022 and by April already opened up the first JC Repair Cafe.