DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
Micromastery—the mastering of a simple, repeatable task such as splitting a log, balancing rocks, or making the perfect omelet—is a rewarding pursuit, though perhaps not an ideal topic for an audiobook. Narrator Roy McMillan energetically explains the rationale for micromastery and rallies listeners to action. It’s the second half of the audiobook that’s the challenge—step-by-step instructions for 39 micromastery tasks such as “Do a High-Speed Getaway J-Turn,” “Juggle Four Balls,” and “Make Fire by Rubbing Two Sticks Together.” The tasks and tips are well described and practical, and there’s lots of fun stuff to pursue. But unless you’ve mastered the bookmarking feature on your audio player, you’ll spend considerable time isolating and repeating the task you wish to learn. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
10/09/2017
According to this enjoyably and infectiously enthusiastic self-help manual from Twigger (Red Nile), the key to skill acquisition is to focus on “micromastery,” or the mastering of small, attainable tasks. A micromastery is “complete in itself, but connected to a greater field”; the author compares micromastering a task to making an omelet, which is cooking but not the whole of cookery. Developing micromasteries, Twigger writes, encourages brain plasticity, self-confidence, and time spent in the “flow state” of being fully immersed in an activity and unconscious of outside distractions. To the author, humans are “polymathic by nature,” yet human cultures tend to overemphasize specialization. He writes with verve and has a knack for the illustrative example. For instance, to demonstrate that micromastery in one area can inspire advances in another, Twigger writes that Alexis Carrel, the 1912 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, learned from “his lace-making mother how to stitch incredibly tiny and intricate patterns” and later applied this ability to new advances in surgery. The book’s largest section describes a variety of possible micromasteries to develop, with instructions. Readers interested in expanding their skill-set—whether that means finding the depth of a well, chopping a log into firewood, surfing standing up, or singing even if tone-deaf—will profit from this amusing book.(Mar.)
From the Publisher
"Micromastery is a triumph. I read it with delight, and instantly vowed to put more conviction into the latest thing I'm trying, which is using a plectrum when I play the guitar."
—Philip Pullman
"I couldn't stop telling people about this book. Wise and joyful, it genuinely changed the way I thought about learning - and it left me bursting to put it into action."
—Tim Harford, author of Messy
DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
Micromastery—the mastering of a simple, repeatable task such as splitting a log, balancing rocks, or making the perfect omelet—is a rewarding pursuit, though perhaps not an ideal topic for an audiobook. Narrator Roy McMillan energetically explains the rationale for micromastery and rallies listeners to action. It’s the second half of the audiobook that’s the challenge—step-by-step instructions for 39 micromastery tasks such as “Do a High-Speed Getaway J-Turn,” “Juggle Four Balls,” and “Make Fire by Rubbing Two Sticks Together.” The tasks and tips are well described and practical, and there’s lots of fun stuff to pursue. But unless you’ve mastered the bookmarking feature on your audio player, you’ll spend considerable time isolating and repeating the task you wish to learn. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
