Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery

'Roger Kneebone is a legend' Mark Miodownik, author of Stuff Matters

'If you want to do anything better, from surgery to embroidery, you can learn something from this book' Christopher Peters, Imperial College London

What could a lacemaker have in common with vascular surgeons? A Savile Row tailor with molecular scientists? A fighter pilot with jazz musicians? At first glance, very little. But Roger Kneebone is the expert on experts, having spent a lifetime finding the connections.

In Expert, he combines his own experiences as a doctor with insights from extraordinary people and cutting-edge research to map out the path we're all following - from 'doing time' as an Apprentice, to developing your 'voice' and taking on responsibility as a Journeyman, to finally becoming a Master and passing on your skills. As Kneebone shows, although each outcome is different, the journey is always the same.

Whether you're developing a new career, studying a language, learning a musical instrument or simply becoming the person you want to be, this ground-breaking book reveals the path to mastery.

'The doctor stitching together medicine and art' Guardian

'Kneebone is our foremost expert on expertise. Expert is a desperately important book at a moment when we've begun to wonder just what we might still be good at' Ken Arnold, Wellcome Collection

'Superbly written, passionately argued and very necessary' Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen

'Whisper it quietly, but post COVID-19, there is a growing realization that experts do matter' Susan Standring, King's College London