Tom Vanderbilt

The bestselling author of Traffic and You May Also Like now offers a thought-provoking, playful investigation into the transformative joys that come with starting something new, no matter one's age.

The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning

Beginners

why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us)

Traffic

From the best-selling author of Traffic, a brilliant and entertaining exploration of our personal tastes--why we like the things we like, and what it says about us. Everyone knows his or her favorite color, the foods we most enjoy, and which season of House of Cards deserves the most stars on Netflix. But what does it really mean when we like something? How do we decide what's good? Is it something biological? What is the role of our personal experiences in shaping our tastes? And how do businesses make use of this information? Comprehensively researched and singularly insightful, You May Also Like delves deep into psychology, marketing, and neuroscience to answer these complex and fascinating questions. From the tangled underpinnings of our food choices, to the dynamics of the pop charts and our playlists, to our nonstop procession of "thumbs" and "likes" and "stars," to our insecurity before unfamiliar works of art, the book explores how we form our preferences--and how they shape us. It explains how difficult it is, even for experts, to pinpoint exactly what makes something good or enjoyable, and how the success of companies such as Netflix, Spotify, and Yelp depends on the complicated task of predicting what we will enjoy. Like Traffic, this book takes us on a fascinating and consistently surprising intellectual journey that helps us better understand how we perceive and appreciate the world around us.

Taste in an Age of Endless Choice

Why We Drive the Way We Do (and what it Says about Us)

The best-selling author of Traffic and You May Also Like now gives us a thought-provoking, playful investigation into the transformative joys that come with starting something new, no matter your age 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? Or is it simply a fact that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Inspired by his young daughter's insatiable need to know how to do almost everything, Tom Vanderbilt begins a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. He tackles five skills, choosing them for their difficulty to master and their lack of marketability--chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. What he doesn't expect is that the circuitous journey he takes while learning these skills will be even more satisfying than any knowledge he gains. He soon finds himself having a rapturous experience singing R.E.M. in an amateur choir, losing games of chess to an eight-year old child, and avoiding scorpions at a surf camp in Costa Rica. Along the way, he explores the fascinating psychology and science behind the benefits of becoming an adult beginner. Through comprehensive research and surprising insight gained from his experiences, Vanderbilt shows how anyone can get better at beginning again. And he shares how his new sense of curiosity opened him up to a profound happiness and a deeper connection to the people around him. Beginners is not a "how to do" book as much as a "why to do" book. It's about how small acts of reinvention, at any age, can make life seem magical

The Power and Pleasure of Lifelong Learning

"Beginners is ultimately about more than learning. It's about the possibilities that reside in all of us." --Daniel H. Pink, New York Times best-selling author of When, Drive, and To Sell is Human The best-selling author of Traffic and You May Also Like gives us an inspirational journey into the transformative joys that come with starting something new, no matter your age Why do so many of us stop learning new skills as adults? Are we afraid to fail? Have we forgotten the sheer pleasure of being a beginner? Or is it simply a fact that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Inspired by his young daughter's insatiable need to know how to do almost everything, and stymied by his own rut of mid-career competence, Tom Vanderbilt begins a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. He tackles five main skills (and picks up a few more along the way), choosing them for their difficulty to master and their distinct lack of career marketability--chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. What he doesn't expect is finding himself having rapturous experiences 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. Along the way, he interviews dozens of experts to explore the fascinating psychology and science behind the benefits of becoming an adult beginner. Weaving comprehensive research and surprising insight gained from his year of learning dangerously, Vanderbilt shows how anyone can begin again--and, more important, why they should take those first awkward steps. Ultimately, he shares how a refreshed sense of curiosity opened him up to a profound happiness and a deeper connection to the people around him--and how small acts of reinvention, at any age, can make life seem magical.

Mixing first-person narrative of his travels around the U.S. in search of Cold War sites and objects with an extensive accumulation of historical facts, the author explores Cold War America's obsession with protecting itself from the nuclear threat through various forms of architectural structures, such as missile silos, fallout shelters, nuclear waste dumps, monoliths like the windowless PacBell building in Los Angeles, and countless motels and diners named "Atomic."

Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America

Survival City

For many of us, the last time we learned a new skill was during childhood. We live in an age which reveres expertise but looks down on the beginner. Upon entering adulthood and middle age, we begin to shy away from trying new things, instead preferring to stay nestled firmly in our comfort zones. 'Beginners' asks the question: why are children the only ones allowed to experience the inherent fun of facing daily challenges? And could we benefit from embracing new skills, even if we're initially hopeless?

Driving is a fact of life. We are all spending more and more time on the road, and traffic is an issue we face everyday. This book will make you think about it in a whole new light. We have always had a passion for cars and driving. Now Traffic offers us an exceptionally rich understanding of that passion. Vanderbilt explains why traffic jams form, outlines the unintended consequences of our attempts to engineer safety and even identifies the most common mistakes drivers make in parking lots. Based on exhaustive research and interviews with driving experts and traffic officials around the globe, Traffic gets under the hood of the quotidian activity of driving to uncover the surprisingly complex web of physical, psychological and technical factors that explain how traffic works.

Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)

Traces the history of the sneaker from its days as a summer shoe for children to its serious use for athletes and importance as a fashion accessory, with quotes, anecdotes, and cartoons

Anatomy of an Industry and an Icon

The Sneaker Book

On the road to Survival City, Tom Vanderbilt maps the visible and invisible legacies of the cold war, exhuming the blueprints for the apocalypse we once envisioned and chronicling a time when we all lived at ground zero. In this road trip among ruined missile silos, atomic storage bunkers, and secret test sites, a lost battleground emerges amid the architecture of the 1950s, accompanied by Walter Cotten’s stunning photographs. Survival City looks deep into the national soul, unearthing the dreams and fears that drove us during the latter half of the twentieth century. “A crucial and dazzling book, masterful, and for me at least, intoxicating.”—Dave Eggers “A genuinely engaging book, perhaps because [Vanderbilt] is skillful at conveying his own sense of engagement to the reader.”—Los Angeles Times “A retracing of Dr. Strangelove as ordinary life.”—Greil Marcus, Bookforum

Tom Vanderbilt

About

Books

Join the club