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Loading... Outliers: The Story of Success (original 2008; edition 2011)by Malcolm Gladwell
Work detailsOutliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)
 usefuljack | May 17, 2013 |  I'm about halfway through this book. It's fascinating, and I love Gladwell's galloping prose. I'm wondering, though, if Gladwell's going to mention any outliers who were not born with Peens. My bet is no. I was right. No women. But! Gladwell is brilliant, and I'm looking forward to his other books. (  ) usefuljack | May 17, 2013 | While interesting, I have to read this with a grain of salt. Micro-analysis books flatten the nuances that make up reality. Also, having read the NYMag article on Jonah Lehrer (http://nym.ag/Wrgey4), I'm not sure that I will ever blithely read and accept the information a popular science book is offering. The beginning chapters start strong; and tie back to each previous chapter. The last four chapters are weak. It seems to me that Gladwell ran out of time or energy; and he threw some half-baked essays into the book to meet his deadline. (  ) lesmel | May 15, 2013 | This was a fascinating book that challenged my thinking in many areas. Some of my favorites quotes include: the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are. ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert — in anything. Daniel Levitin The plain truth of the Terman study, however, is that in the end, almost none of the genius children from the lowest social and economic class ended up making a name for themselves. The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with. Autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. We should be able to predict which countries are best at math simply by looking at which national cultures place the highest emphasis on effort and hard work. (  ) dannywahlquist | May 14, 2013 | For some reason, Outliers, which was published five years ago, wound up at the bottom of my TBR pile until I rescued it recently. What’s weird about that is that Malcolm Gladwell is among my very favorite authors. It was worth waiting for! Malcolm Gladwell is a big picture guy, one who takes something that readers think they know all about and gives us a new way of looking at it. He’s a great storyteller, and Outliers is LOADED with stories about interesting, smart and successful people. But rather than extol the rugged individualist who makes it on his own against staggering odds, he shows just how LUCKY those people – and he gives us chapter and verse. It’s always better to read Gladwell without knowing what the essay or book is about. So, I won’t say much more except that Outliers is a fascinating read and Gladwell at his best. He hasn’t had a major book since 2008 (just a book of essays reprinted from The New Yorker), so I can’t wait to read his next book, David and Goliath, which comes out in October. ( ) NewsieQ | May 13, 2013 |
 “Outliers” has much in common with Gladwell’s earlier work. It is a pleasure to read and leaves you mulling over its inventive theories for days afterward. It also, unfortunately, avoids grappling in a few instances with research that casts doubt on those theories. This is a particular shame, because it would be a delight to watch someone of his intellect and clarity make sense of seemingly conflicting claims.  The world for Gladwell is a text that he reads as closely as he can in seeking to decode and interpret it. He is adept at identifying underlying trends from which he extrapolates to form hypotheses, presenting them as if they were general laws of social behaviour. But his work has little philosophical rigour. He's not an epistemologist; his interest is in what we think, rather than in the how and why of knowledge itself.  The book, which purports to explain the real reason some people — like Bill Gates and the Beatles — are successful, is peppy, brightly written and provocative in a buzzy sort of way. It is also glib, poorly reasoned and thoroughly unconvincing.
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I was right. No women. But! Gladwell is brilliant, and I'm looking forward to his other books. (