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ABOUT THE BOOK (from Amazon):
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
Last year I read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. In case you missed it, you can read my review of that book here. I enjoyed Blink so much that after reading it I added all of Gladwell’s other books to my “to read” list. I’m glad I did because I found Outliers equally as fascinating.
In Outliers, Gladwell dispels the myth of the “self-made man.” He shows how things like the timing of a person’s birth, their background, culture, and other factors can contribute to one’s success in ways that are often not immediately obvious. I found his research and stories to be very interesting. Gladwell covers everything from professional hockey players to successful lawyers to Bill Gates and even the Beatles. He gives his readers a new perspective on how people come to be successful.
I highly recommend this book.