Books : Outliers: The Story of Success

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by: Malcolm Gladwell

: Outliers: The Story of Success

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 302
EAN: 9780316017923
ISBN: 0316017922
Label: Little, Brown and Company
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: November 18, 2008
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: November 18, 2008
Sales Rank: 7
Studio: Little, Brown and Company



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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
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.

Amazon.com Review:
Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm





Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Malcom's books are great!!!
Malcolm Gladwell books are very well written by this young author. It is worthwhile to invest time and money to learn with his ideas!!!


Rating: 2 out of 5 stars - NOT all it's cracked up to be
I'd give this a single star, but the creativity of the subject is enough to warrant at least two stars. Plus everyone seems to discount one-stars as vendetta reviews.

In fact, I should have listened to the 9 page one-star review that I read before buying this book for my Kindle. It is NOT worth it.

90% fluff, and the ideas themselves are weak at best.

The best chapter is the aircraft accident dissection, but even that is not related to the topic of the book, it is a "distributed cognition" subject - something better left for another book altogether. Oh wait, that has already been written, Professor Ed Hutchins' "Cognition in the Wild"

Save your time and money (I'm even going to get my $10 back from Amazon).


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Yes, Gladwell Has Done it Again
I can always count on Malcolm Gladwell's ability to see things from a new perspective.
Outliers will have you rethinking the concept of success.

Gladwell starts with exploring the case of the Pennsylvania town where no one dies of a heart attack before the age of 55. The mystery of the townsfolk's longevity and relative good health has a surprising origin (I won't divulge).

This lays the foundation for the argument that successful outcome may owe itself more to mundane circumstances rather than the innate abilities and intelligence we've come to assume are the only elements.

If you are interested in the subject of success, give Mr. Gladwell's treatment of the subject some consideration before you run off to your next success-guru session.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Offers a new way at looking at the world.
I enjoyed and got a lot more out of this book than "Tipping Point", Malcolm Gladwell's first book. First off, it is a very delightful and entertaining read. Gladwell is a master story teller. He creates suspense out of ordinary stories that we have all experienced in life. His technique reminded me of the ones the brothers Heath recommended in their wonderful book, "Made to Stick". "Outliers" consists of numerous well told stories which help Gladwell make the point that often success is wrongly overly attributed to pure talent.

Much of the criticism directed at Gladwell is valid, but readers must remember that the author is tackling a social science - not a hard science like physics or chemistry. Why is Bill Gates so successful? Gladwell offers one theory and of course there may be many more different ways of looking at his success. There is no correct answer as to why some succeed but Gladwell makes a convincing argument for the roles of hard work (he argues that one needs 10,000 hours of practice) and environment. He argues that environment is ultimately a function of luck. For example, you have a much better chance of playing professional hockey in Canada if you are born at the beginning of a given year. Gladwell also inverts the problem by looking at various stories of failure such as why Korean pilots were so much more likely to crash. Gladwell also does great service by taking on cultural and race issues head on, a sensitive topic that many authors may find difficult to write about. For example, he analyzes why Chinese are good in math. Naturally readers are not going to agree (I certainly did not) with everything Gladwell argues, but that does not make the book any worse. He gives readers a lot to think about while being extremely entertaining.

Gladwell is a very talented writer who has clearly put in 10,000 hours practicing his skills and has been lucky to have been given the opportunity to put those skills to use. I highly recommend this brilliant book.



Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Success = Fortunate Circumstances + Elbow Grease
Everyone is interested in the recipe for success. So it's no wonder that the public is so enthralled by a book claiming that anyone with an IQ of 120 can become a nobel prize winner or industry titan as long as he is born at the right time and place and is willing to devote 10,000 hours of practice to refine his skills. Genius, it seems, is vastly overated, as evidenced by the inability of the world's smartest man to succeed in a material sense.

Gladwell selects some interesting anecdotes to support his thesis, including the Bill Gates story and the similar background of many founding partners in New York law firms, but some of his anecdotal evidence (like the relationship between ancestors working in rice paddies and success in mathematics) seems stretched beyond the plausible, falling prey to the very confirmation bias that he cautions against. Still, this book's ringing endorsement of the value of hard work and persistence is a much-needed clarion call for a country like ours, whose citizens often have an unrealistic sense of entitlement without the requisite sacrifice and hard work.

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