Friday, June 25, 2010

Outliers

I've just finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, having immensely enjoyed his previous book Blink. Outliers is even more fascinating than Blink and deals with the phenomenon of success. By surveying a broad cross section of geniuses, billionaires, sports stars and successful people from all walks of life, Gladwell explains why some people are so successful and others are not. The stories he tells are so fascinating that I can honestly say I never remember being so captivated by a non-fiction book before. The book is a must-read for all parents who desire  for their children to succeed in life.

I don't have time to write a formal review or to explain those aspects which make the book so useful for parents, but if this wets your appetite for more, check out Steve Hayhow's review here or this discussion on Malcolm Gladwell's own website.

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1 comment:

Sean King, JD, CPA, MAcc said...

A wonderful book indeed. His premise, which he documents empirically with fascinating stories, is consistent with Nassim Taleb's much more developed thesis in "The Black Swan". That is, much progress (whether at the individual or societal level) is a result of random events that are often overlooked in our desire to explain things causally.

I too enjoyed "Blink" and I would suggest that it has some relevance to our prior discussions about how to interpret Paul's writings. For instance, you may recall Gladwell's discussing of "priming". I would suggest that the gospels and 2,000 years of orthodox teaching have "primed" us to intepret the epistles of Paul in a certain way, and that Paul's writings read very differently if we train ourselves to re-read without these distractions.

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