Outliers - New York Times Bestselling Book by Malcolm Gladwell

First off let me state from the beginning that I absolutely loved Malcolm Gladwell's first book "A Tipping Point". I love books that add to my knowledge about things that I thought I already knew and also his ability to keenly look deeper into things that opens a new perspective to the world for the reader. So when I saw on Book TV that he had a new book coming out I bought it immediately.

This is Malcolm's third book and I have to say that I wasn't disappointed. Although I do rate "A Tipping Point" higher I place this in second place ahead of "Blink". This book is all about how we have been told that most people who have excelled in life picked themselves up by their boot straps and persevered through unimaginable hardships. Although, he never states that this isn't true for some of us, he makes a pretty good case that some things are out of our hands, at that a little thing like what part of the year you were born can make the difference between playing hockey on weekends and playing in the NHL.

When I first started reading this I was skeptical but interested because Malcolm is so good at taking data and reorganizing it and showing it to you in a way that not only have you not thought about before, but also in a defined way that you now have an understanding of. This is his greatest skill as a writer, he communicates his points in a way that anyone could understand and he illuminates a new concept or idea to them that you will find interesting and intriguing.

I think I was most impressed with his assertion that some of the most famous and successful people in the world, and world history for that matter, actually had some hidden advantages at their disposal and were beneficiaries of being in the right place at the right time. You will be thoroughly entertained to hear about Bill Gates advantages that he had nothing to do with but changed the way we all use computers. Even people like the railroad tycoons from the 1800's, they all had something common that even they probably never thought about.

I think that what I most enjoy about this book is the pieces of information, pieces of gold, that I never would have known about without reading it. You too will be enlightened to find the connections between the people that succeeded today and where they came from, or what nationality their parents were and when they came to the United States. Things that you would never in your wildest dreams have thought would make a difference in whole generations of people.

One bit of trivia from the book that blew me away was something that I will tell you here. You may have already heard it or read it since it was a big part of the public relations splash. It's that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master a skill. Mr. Gladwell than backs up this statistic with actual examples. That is something that I didn't even know that anyone had been working on. His most provocative example are The Beatles. They played in Hamburg Germany on 12 hour shifts while they were young and forming themselves into what became the greatest band of all time.I've only touched on a few of the topics in "Outliers", there are several more and of course in much greater detail. Plus Malcolm is a gifted writer who draws you in and then tells you the story behind the story. This is a must read for anyone who has any curiosity of the world and the people in it.