BOOK REVIEW: OUTLIERS

Malcolm Gladwell is an author that blows my mind.  His synergistic case study approach is one that I enjoy quite a lot.  I was first introduced to Gladwell while working at Trails End Camp during the summer of 2009.  My friend Jess coughed up "The Tipping Point" during our improvised book club swap. 

I think I managed to plough through it within the week, literally drumming up excuses to not be social so that I could have the alone time needed to reach the back cover.  "The Tipping Point" is an anti-mainstream examination of how little ideas "tip" and become mainstays so quickly. It was a fascinating and thought-provoking read. So yeah....I like Gladwell.

His latest installment, "Outliers" did not disappoint.  I picked it up this summer on our way to Annapolis, Maryland and have been reading through it ever since.  Which brings me to my first "pro."  Gladwell breaks his books down into small installment style case studies that allow for a staccato reading plan.  What I mean is that you can stop and start at will without missing the overriding themes that are being presented.  It's taken me months to finish this book, but I do not feel that I've missed out on any of the main ideas by tackling the book in this manner.

The synopsis from the back cover reads, "In understanding successful people, we have come to focus far too much on their intelligence and ambition and personality traits.  Instead, Malcolm Gladwell argues in Outliers, we should look at the world that surrounds the successful -- their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.  Along the way, Gladwell reveals what the Beatles and Bill Gates have in common, the reason you've never heard of the smartest man in the world, why almost no start hockey players are born in the fall, and why, when it comes to plane crashes, where the pilots are born matters as much as how well they are trained."

"The lives of outliers -- people whose achievements fall outside normal experience -- follow a peculiar and unexpected logic, and in uncovering that logic, Gladwell presents a fascinating and provocative blueprint for making the most of human potential."

I know that this blurb has at least peaked your interest.  It did mine while searching for an airplane read in the Tampa airport. One quick interjection (I would not advise buying this book in an airport, getting onto a plane, and then flipping to the section on plane crashes.  I did that.  You should not).

The examples will delight readers from varying backgrounds.  There are sports examples, musical examples, geographic examples, and cultural examples.  Each case study builds upon the ones preceding it until you begin connecting the dots mere moments before Gladwell ties it up in a pretty little bow for you.  It's not a difficult read, but staying focused with the examples is crucial for its synergistic method. 

I'm not sure I can come up with any "cons" for this book.  I found it to be exactly as I've come to expect from Malcolm Gladwell.  Fascinating and insightful in the way he takes something so ingrained into our upbringing "What it takes to be successful" and challenges it in a way that has you questioning conventional thinking. 

So do you want to know what the Beatles and Bill Gates have in common?  Here's a hint:  Hamburg, Germany and Lakeside Academy.  Oh...that didn't help?  Well I highly recommend that you snag a copy of Outliers and find out for yourself. 

.....And if you're still not convinced.  Look up any NHL team's roster and look at the pattern of birth dates.  Double check and see how many hockey stars are born in October, November, and December?  Then look and see how many are born in January, February and March.

Peculiar isn't it!