Gopnik...isn’t the first author to emerge victorious from the American tournament of achievement only to discern its spiritual emptiness. But his contribution to an antidote feels original, and mercifully within reach.

The book I was expecting was something closer to a confessional memoir: a critic at the height of an illustrious career finally admitting which of his assumptions and judgments had been wrong.

That phrase, 'the real work,' comes from Gopnik’s fascinating glimpse into the world of magic, a trade in which the normal obscurities of skill acquisition are rendered even more opaque.

Via memoir, analysis and criticism he assembles a celebration of the flaws that make us human.

What makes Gopnik’s account so powerful for educators is that he’s seemingly not thinking about us at all. He’s caught up in the real work, and there is reverie there.

Through observation and deduction, Gopnik grasps much about the meaning of mastery, its many sides, requirement of extensive practice, invention, and intuition, how it happens via a series of small steps, and flow. Gopnik’s unusual analysis of expertise and accomplishment includes his own charming moments and can-do attitude..

Masterful.