I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's third book entitled "Outliers", and as with the previous two, I was totally enthralled. Not to bore you with details about the book that you can look up on Amazon or Wikipedia, it essentially digs up the ol' "nature vs. nurture" argument in how and why people become high-achievers in their respective fields, or so-called statistical "outliers". The book is filled with fascinating theories on such things as why things such as date or year of birth and ethnic background play a huge role in how we as humans succeed (in everything from hockey to rock stardom to billionaire computer conglomerate CEOs). Gladwell takes social science phenomenon that we take for granted and bends them in his classic manner, as he did in "Blink" and "The Tipping Point", and makes you view the world in an entirely different way. Sounds cliche, but his unique vision is a major paradigm shift in many everyday accepted facts. He's been criticized as being a "pop sociologist", but so be it - it's absolutely brilliant. I breezed through the book in about a week and a half (and I've got two other books going also!). The man's a genius.
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