
The Real Work
On the Mystery of Mastery
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Narrated by:
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Adam Gopnik
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By:
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Adam Gopnik
About this listen
Longtime New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik investigates a foundational human question: How do we learn―and master―a new skill
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―the term magicians use for the accumulated craft that makes for a great trick―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. He finds that mastering a skill is a process of methodically breaking down and building up, piece by piece―and that true mastery, in any field, requires mastering other people’s minds. Read by the author, The Real Work is exuberant and profound, and is ultimately about why we relentlessly seek to better ourselves in the first place.
©2023 Adam Gopnik (P)2023 Pushkin IndustriesListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“There is no writer more qualified to write about the mystery of mastery than Adam Gopnik, the most masterful of essayists. The Real Work is peak Gopnik.” ―Malcolm Gladwell
“Gopnik is a writer with a keen, warm eye and a generous heart.” ―Financial Times
"Intellectually and viscerally thrilling."―Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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Story
Within the chapters of Striking Thoughts, you will find the secrets of Bruce Lee's incredible success—as an actor, martial artist, and inspiration to the world. Consisting of eight sections, Striking Thoughts covers 72 topics and 825 aphorisms—from spirituality to personal liberation and from family life to filmmaking—all of which Bruce lived by. His ideas helped energize his life and career and made it possible for him to live a happy and assured life, overcoming challenging obstacles with seeming ease.
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Great book, awful audio book
- By Sam Vo on 06-17-20
By: Bruce Lee
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Greek to Me
- Adventures of the Comma Queen
- By: Mary Norris
- Narrated by: Mary Norris
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Greek to Me is a charming account of Norris’s lifelong love affair with words and her solo adventures in the land of olive trees and ouzo. Along the way, Norris explains how the alphabet originated in Greece, makes the case for Athena as a feminist icon, seeks the fabled Baths of Aphrodite, and reveals the surprising ways Greek helped form English. Filled with Norris’s memorable encounters with Greek words, Greek gods, Greek wine - and more than a few Greek men - Greek to Me is the Comma Queen’s fresh take on Greece and its exotic yet strangely familiar language.
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Love!
- By Syd Young on 07-01-19
By: Mary Norris
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Ultralearning
- Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career
- By: Scott H. Young
- Narrated by: Scott H. Young
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Future-proof your career and maximize your competitive advantage by learning the skill necessary to stay relevant, reinvent yourself, and adapt to whatever the workplace throws your way in this essential guide. Scott Young incorporates the latest research about the most effective learning methods and the stories of other ultralearners like himself - among them Ben Franklin, Judit Polgar, and Richard Feynman, as well as a host of others, such as little-known modern polymaths like Nigel Richards who won the World Championship of French Scrabble - without knowing French.
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I Thought I Already Knew Something About Learning
- By Tyler L on 09-08-19
By: Scott H. Young
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Paris to the Moon
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
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Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner: in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
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Wish this wasn't abridged!!
- By Sarah D. on 03-25-17
By: Adam Gopnik
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At the Strangers' Gate
- Arrivals in New York
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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When Adam Gopnik and his soon-to-be-wife, Martha, left the comforts of home in Montreal for New York, the city then, much like today, was a pilgrimage site for the young, the arty, and the ambitious. But it was also becoming a city of greed, where both life's consolations and its necessities were increasingly going to the highest bidder. At the Strangers' Gate builds a portrait of this particular moment in New York through the story of this couple's journey - from their excited arrival as aspiring artists to their eventual growth into a New York family.
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Brush up contemporary visual artists first
- By S. Elder on 09-16-17
By: Adam Gopnik
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Through the Children's Gate
- A Home in New York
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Abridged
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Autumn 2000: After five years in Paris, Adam Gopnik moves his family back to a New York that seems, at first, safer and shinier than ever. Here in the wondrously strange "neighborhood" of Manhattan we observe the triumphs and travails of father, mother, son, and daughter; and of the teachers, coaches, therapists, adversaries, and friends who round out the extended urban family.
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Rambling and Often Dull
- By A. Ross on 10-20-06
By: Adam Gopnik
What listeners say about The Real Work
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Betsy Fowler
- 07-02-23
Adam Gopnik's thoughts mastering things
Gopnick is one of today's more entertaining writers and I enjoyed this book even though some of its subject matter didn't interest me (magic techniques and boxing, to name two). But there is something for everyone here, and much to be learned, whether it is mastered or not.
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- KF
- 04-12-23
Reading this was a mystery
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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- C. A. Murphy
- 06-23-23
Surprisingly Good
I almost didn’t buy this audiobook because of the previous reviews. I’m glad that I relied on my previous enjoyment of books and articles by the author. I was not only entertained, but inspired and motivated to try a new skill myself.
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- Chant Cheeta
- 06-03-23
Brilliant
He builds and then uses an unexpected foundation; but with this unusual approach, he is able to expand it into other areas that lead to real depth. I was truly entranced and moved by this.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anna Rich
- 03-26-23
Huh?
I couldn't hang on for more than two hours. I got lost in the literary disquisition of magicians and magic tricks, the history of magicians and magic tricks, famous magicians… I was interested in what he had to say about drawing, which didn't take as long as the slog through magic seemed to do and it turns out, I already know the secret to master drawing, having been drawing for sixty years, and I'll add something he perhaps didn't stick with it long enough to learn or impart: that quest just doesn't end.
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