Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Outliers

On Wednesday, January 26th, Bookenders book group will be discussing Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell at 7 p.m. downstairs in the library. Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.


In this provocative and inspiring book, Malcolm Gladwell examines everyone from business giants to scientific geniuses, sports stars to musicians, and reveals what they have in common. He looks behind the spectacular results, the myths and the legends to show what really explains exceptionally successful people. Gladwell argues that, when we try to understand success, we normally start with the wrong question. We ask 'what is this person like?' when we should really be asking 'where are they from?' The real secret of success turns out to be surprisingly simple, and it hinges on a few crucial twists in people's life stories - on the culture they grow up in and the way they spend their time.


Malcolm Gladwell is a United Kingdom-born, Canadian-raised journalist now based in New York City. He is a former business and science writer at the Washington Post. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He is best known as the author of the books The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), and Outliers: The Story of Success (2008) all of which were number one New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures (2009) is a compilation of stories published in The New Yorker.

From 1987 to 1996, he was a reporter with the Washington Post, where he covered business, science, and then served as the newspaper's New York City bureau chief. He graduated from the University of Toronto, Trinity College, with a degree in history. He was born in England, grew up in rural Ontario, and now lives in New York City.

2 comments:

  1. I wish I had been able to attend the discussion of this book. It really caused me to think, to see things in a different way, and to wonder about the societal implications of his findings.

    Eloise Fugal

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