The First 20 Hours

Computer/writer nerd yearns to learn. (Sorry Josh just going by the dust jacket photo).

When I started this book I did not think I would have any desire to learn how to play the ukelele, learn Go, or go windsurfing. After reading Josh's case studies of how he picked up these widely varying skills by deconstructing the steps and then applying them to the various pursuits - I find that I'm fascinated.

Mr. Kaufman shows you the essence of what you need to know to get to the point where you have at least rudimentary skill set for almost any pursuit within 20 hours. Notice I did not say you will be a master but you can attain a quick, strong grasp of those areas of life that you find practical or just plain fun if you follow his techniques.

That being said time for me to go dust off some of the projects I've abandoned and apply what I've learned.

The first 3 chapters introduce the method, the remaining 6 showcase how the author used it to learn radically different skills such as developing websites, playing Go, or windsurfing. While it was good to have examples of application of the method, they often went into way too many details (e.g. it was interesting to read about the origins and rules of Go, but ~15 pages? it's not what I'm here for).

The method itself is introduced in a very well structured way and explaining the reasoning behind every step.
All in all, a nice read, it could have been written in a long blog post rather than a book. The TED talk in which the author appears is very nice, by the way!

2.5 stars

A general guide on how to learn things fast, coupled with the authors experience learning new skills from start to finish. I found some parts really interesting (learning how to program, play GO, switch keyboard layouts to Colemak), but the windsurfing chapter didn't interest me at all, and the Yoga section felt completely bloated.