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Beginners : the joy and transformative power of lifelong learning / Tom Vanderbilt.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021Copyright date: ©2021Edition: First editionDescription: x, 299 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781524732165
  • 1524732168
  • 9780525432975
  • 0525432973
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Prologue: The opening gambit -- A beginner's guide to being a beginner -- Learning how to learn: what infants can teach us about being good beginners -- Unlearning to sing -- I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway: the virtues of learning to fly with a group -- Surfing the u-shaped wave: the agony and the ecstasy of the advanced beginner -- How we learn to do things -- Meditation with benefits: how drawing changed the way I saw the world, and myself -- The apprentice, or, What I learned.
Summary: "Why do so many of us stop learning new skills as adults? Are we afraid to fail? Have we forgotten the sheer pleasure of being a beginner? Or is it simply a fact that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Inspired by his young daughter's insatiable need to know how to do almost everything, and stymied by his own rut of mid-career competence, Tom Vanderbilt begins a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. He tackles five main skills (and picks up a few more along the way), choosing them for their difficulty to master and their distinct lack of career marketability--chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling." -- Amazon.com.Summary: "The best-selling author of Traffic and You May Also Like now gives us a thought-provoking, playful investigation into the transformative joys that come with starting something new, no matter your age"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 646.7 V228 Available 33111010665376
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 646.7 V228 Available 33111010452411
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An insightful, joyful tour of the transformative powers of starting something new, no matter your age-- from the bestselling author of Traffic and You May Also Like

"Vanderbilt elegantly and persuasively tackles one of the most pernicious of the lies we tells ourselves--that the pleasures of learning are reserved for the young." --Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Outliers

Why do so many of us stop learning new skills as adults? Are we afraid to be bad at something? Have we forgotten the sheer pleasure of beginning from the ground up? Inspired by his young daughter's insatiable curiosity, Tom Vanderbilt embarks on a yearlong quest of learning--purely for the sake of learning. Rapturously singing Spice Girls songs in an amateur choir, losing games of chess to eight-year-olds, and dodging scorpions at a surf camp in Costa Rica, Vanderbilt tackles five main skills but learns so much more. Along the way, he interviews dozens of experts about the fascinating psychology and science behind the benefits of becoming an adult beginner and shows how anyone can get better at beginning again--and, more important, why they should take those first awkward steps. Funny, uplifting, and delightfully informative, Beginners is about how small acts of reinvention, at any age, can make life seem magical.

"This is a Borzoi book" -- Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-299).

Prologue: The opening gambit -- A beginner's guide to being a beginner -- Learning how to learn: what infants can teach us about being good beginners -- Unlearning to sing -- I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway: the virtues of learning to fly with a group -- Surfing the u-shaped wave: the agony and the ecstasy of the advanced beginner -- How we learn to do things -- Meditation with benefits: how drawing changed the way I saw the world, and myself -- The apprentice, or, What I learned.

"Why do so many of us stop learning new skills as adults? Are we afraid to fail? Have we forgotten the sheer pleasure of being a beginner? Or is it simply a fact that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Inspired by his young daughter's insatiable need to know how to do almost everything, and stymied by his own rut of mid-career competence, Tom Vanderbilt begins a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. He tackles five main skills (and picks up a few more along the way), choosing them for their difficulty to master and their distinct lack of career marketability--chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling." -- Amazon.com.

"The best-selling author of Traffic and You May Also Like now gives us a thought-provoking, playful investigation into the transformative joys that come with starting something new, no matter your age"-- Provided by publisher.

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