Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell

I enjoyed, reviewed, and recommended Gladwell's other two best-sellers: Blink and The Tipping Point. I got the feeling that Outliers is a crass commercial effort to capitalize on his two other successes. In plain English I think this book lacks integrity. While it may, at times, be clever, it is never profound! Gladwell uses "data-mining" to give the impression that a few specific cases can lead to broad general conclusions.

Although I thought the first chapter, about why Canadian Hockey players are predominantly born January through April, was both brilliant and revealing, it all went downhill from there. He devotes a lot of (in my opinion, wasted and boring) time doing very shallow analysis of nature versus nature and IQ versus practical knowledge, or what I might call "street smarts"

In the end, this is not a terrible book. However, I think discerning readers can do better elsewhere. I read the book because it was recommended to me by a few people and has been very topical. Readers beware! If you have a different opinion I would love to hear from you.

Review by Len Oppenheim

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