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Description
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal PerformanceIn his riveting new book, The Art of Learning, Waitzkin tells his remarkable story of personal achievement and shares the principles of learning and performance that have propelled him to the top twice. Josh Waitzkin knows what it means to be at the top of his game. A public figure since winning his first National Chess Championship at the age of nine, Waitzkin was catapulted into a media whirlwind as a teenager when his father's book Searching for
In his riveting new book, The Art of Learning, Waitzkin tells his remarkable story of personal achievement and shares the principles of learning and performance that have propelled him to the top--twice. Josh Waitzkin knows what it means to be at the top of his game. A public figure since winning his first National Chess Championship at the age of nine, Waitzkin was catapulted into a media whirlwind as a teenager when his father's book Searching for Bobby Fischer was made into a major motion picture. After dominating the scholastic chess world for ten years, Waitzkin expanded his horizons, taking on the martial art Tai Chi Chuan and ultimately earning the title of World Champion. How was he able to reach the pinnacle of two disciplines that on the surface seem so different? "I've come to realize that what I am best at is not Tai Chi, and it is not chess," he says. "What I am best at is the art of learning." With a narrative that combines heart-stopping martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs with life lessons that speak to all of us, The Art of Learning takes readers through Waitzkin's unique journey to excellence. He explains in clear detail how a well-thought-out, principled approach to learning is what separates success from failure. Waitzkin believes that achievement, even at the championship level, is a function of a lifestyle that fuels a creative, resilient growth process. Rather than focusing on climactic wins, Waitzkin reveals the inner workings of his everyday method, from systematically triggering intuitive breakthroughs, to honing techniques into states of remarkable potency, to mastering the art of performance psychology. Through his own example, Waitzkin explains how to embrace defeat and make mistakes work for you. Does your opponent make you angry? Waitzkin describes how to channel emotions into creative fuel. As he explains it, obstacles are not obstacles but challenges to overcome, to spur the growth process by turning weaknesses into strengths. He illustrates the exact routines that he has used in all of his competitions, whether mental or physical, so that you too can achieve your peak performance zone in any competitive or professional circumstance. In stories ranging from his early years taking on chess hustlers as a seven year old in New York City's Washington Square Park, to dealing with the pressures of having a film made about his life, to International Chess Championships in India, Hungary, and Brazil, to gripping battles against powerhouse fighters in Taiwan in the Push Hands World Championships, The Art of Learning encapsulates an extraordinary competitor's life lessons in a page-turning narrative.Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 05/01/2008
ISBN: 9780743277464
Pages: 265
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.29h x 5.61w x 0.68d
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4.7 ★★★★★
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Product Reviews
★★★★★ 5
Snuggle bug
My son loves to snuggle with this. And the binkie attachment piece is a plus!
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Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Good
Format: Paperback
Got it for my class reading (not surprising tho, the book was great). Quick delivery and great packaging.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Valuable perspective; moving; beautiful
Format: Hardcover
I loved this book. I devoured the entire thing in one sitting on a Sunday afternoon. It's a beautiful and tragic and warm story all at the same time. I feel like a lot of times when we hear about the Vietnam war in the United States, it's told from the perspective of American soldiers rather than the Southern Vietnamese who lost their home land. Really refreshing to see this diverse and nuanced perspective. I look forward to Thi Bui's future works.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2022
★★★★★ 5
This book healed me
Format: Paperback
Beautifully written and illustrated. Although Thi Bui and I have astronomically different life experiences, I still found I could relate on a deeply personal level. This book taught me empathy and forgiveness at a time in my life where I struggled to have it. Bui nailed the complicated feelings and emotions that comes with confronting abuse, abusers (who happen to be your parents), and the painful impact of generational trauma on both the parent and child.
Highly recommend this book to anyone who is on a path of healing their own broken heart.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2023
★★★★★ 4
Powerful Family History
Format: Paperback
After the birth of her son, Thi Bui feels an increased sense of urgency about learning the stories of her own parents. Like all but her youngest sibling, she was born in Vietnam, though the children came of age in the United States. While the war itself haunts all of them, was the reason they left their homeland, the wounds her parents bear go far beyond the military conflict. This was only the second graphic novel I’ve ever read (both have been memoirs), and like the first was also selected by my book club. I feel like the limitations of the format mean it will always be a less preferred one for me, because I found myself wanting more words, more depth to the writing itself. But the story is deeply compelling, detailing her father’s brutal childhood, her mother’s much softer one, how they came together, and how the Vietnam War disrupted the future they thought they might have. It’s not as straightforward as “Americans bad”, and Bui is not afraid of the moral ambiguity of that time and place, where the best interests of the majority of the Vietnamese people was an open question for larger forces that seemed to have little room for consideration of what might have actually made regular lives easier to lead. And apart from the larger geopolitical machinations around them, the family had their own share of tragedy, including the death of their first child and a later stillbirth. But three living children and another on the way was enough for her parents to make frantic arrangements to leave, finally succeeding and eventually making their way to the United States. But of course, that was not the end of their story, just the beginning of a new chapter. Bui’s childhood as she depicts it makes it clear that it wasn’t the stuff dreams are made of, but what shines through is her tremendous empathy for her parents and how they became the people she experienced them as. Overarching the narrative is a meditation on parenthood, as it is the birth of her own child that inspires her to ask her parents more. They might have made major mistakes, but it is clear that they loved their children and did what they thought was best for them, making countless sacrifices to give them the best opportunities possible, even if that love was not always shown the way that they wanted and needed to feel it. Vietnamese perspectives on the war in their country were not something I was exposed to growing up (honestly the Vietnam War itself wasn’t something I remember being taught with particular rigor in high school apart from its connection to electoral politics), and I appreciated learning more about the history of the country and how the people who actually lived through the conflict thought about it. Even though this is not my preferred format, I think Bui uses it well to engage in some non-linear storytelling and to very literally illustrate what she’s trying to get it, like the way she parallels the way her relatively rural parents must have felt seeing Saigon for the first time with the way she felt when she first moved to New York, a sense of awe and possibility. It’s a powerful, moving work and I would recommend picking it up!
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Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2026
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