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The Real Work
- On the Mystery of Mastery
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 14
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 11
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 11
For decades, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a fundamental matter: How did the people he was writing about learn their outlandish skill, whether it was drawing a nude or baking a sourdough loaf? In The Real Work, Gopnik apprentices himself to an artist, a dancer, a boxer, and even a driving instructor (from the DMV), among others, trying his late-middle-age hand at things he assumed were beyond him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant
- By Chant Cheeta on 06-03-23
- The Real Work
- On the Mystery of Mastery
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
Reading this was a mystery
Reviewed: 04-12-23
Gopnik explores various fields—magic, driving, boxing—in an attempt to share the “mystery of mastery.” He admits he is not a master of these things but did a poor job explaining to the reader (to me at least) what the mysteries were. If he was going to interview masters, especially when discussing driving or boxing, perhaps he should have interviewed an F1 or NASCAR champion or a world title holder or coach, not an NYC driving instructor or an amateur kick boxing/Muay Thai winner. Lots of waxing poetics, not much substance.
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