
Beginners
The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning
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Narrated by:
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Tom Vanderbilt
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By:
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Tom Vanderbilt
An insightful, joyful tour of the transformative powers of starting something new, no matter your age - from the best-selling author of Traffic and You May Also Like
“Vanderbilt elegantly and persuasively tackles one of the most pernicious of the lies we tell ourselves - that the pleasures of learning are reserved for the young.” (Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling 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.
©2020 Tom Vanderbilt (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
"Witty, well-researched, myth-busting and curiously of the moment. Vanderbilt tells a compelling tale. Eighty pages in, I joined a choir." (Robert Penn, author of It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels)
"It's impossible to pick up a book by Tom Vanderbilt without learning something. An engaging and fascinating mix of the personal and the general. I never thought I'd read a book that could persuade me to take up juggling, but this one did it." (Robert Colvile)
"Vanderbilt.. composes lucid prose and explains concepts...with relative ease, and his thesis is practical and worthwhile... compelling...A solid beginner's guide to beginning" (Kirkus)
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Encouragement to stay curious as we age
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I didn’t want it to end!
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an interesting and informative book
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Love this book 💞
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Fascinating
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What I found most refreshing is that he doesn’t glorify failure or fetishize growth. He makes a strong case that starting over—awkwardly, clumsily, humbly—isn’t indulgent. It’s essential. Especially if you’ve built a life around competence and expertise, this book reminds you that discomfort isn’t regression. It’s reinvention.
If you’ve been craving something new, not to achieve, but to feel again—this is your nudge to try, and to do it badly, on purpose
Brave
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