Outliers
by Malcolm Gladwell
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
42%
Critic Reviews: 26
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Reader Rating
86%
Reader Ratings: 3031
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Synopsis
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of... more
About Malcolm Gladwell
Published: November 18, 2008 by Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Business & Economics. Non-fiction. 320 pages
- All Critics: 26
- Positive: 11
- Negative: 15
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The New York Times | 28 Nov 2008
. . .leaves you mulling over its inventive theories for days afterward. It also, unfortunately, avoids grappling in a few instances with research that casts doubt on those theories.
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Time Magazine | 13 Nov 2008
Outliers is a more personal book than its predecessors are.
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Open Letters Monthly
. . .how egregiously incomplete, insubstantial, and unconvincing Gladwell’s explanation of success actually is.
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The Washington Post | 23 Nov 2008
At times, in his laudable effort to critique biological arguments, especially the idea that talent is dispensed by the luck of the genetic draw, Gladwell goes too far.
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The Independent | 21 Nov 2008
. . .it turns out that this bitter, unAmerican pill comes deftly spun in sugar.
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Business Week | 20 Nov 2008
. . .even if one can't help wondering what contradictory evidence Gladwell may have left out, Outliers is thought-provoking.
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Entertainment Weekly | 12 Nov 2008
. . .Gladwell always tells stories to make his points, and every single one of them in Outliers is a plateful of brain food that tastes like salty peanuts.
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The Telegraph | 10 Dec 2008
. . .that's the secret of Outliers: it isn't about outliers at all. It's about everyone.
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The Guardian | 22 Nov 2008
The trouble with the book is that Gladwell is ultimately engaged in a long argument with nobody but himself.
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Salon | 17 Nov 2008
The problem with having your theory in hand from the beginning is that you have to slough off whatever data don’t fit.
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Seattle Times | 13 Nov 2008
. . .Gladwell never confronts the fact that success is defined differently in different cultures;
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The Wall Street Journal | 15 Nov 2008
. . .for all the quibbles that may attend the individual stories that Mr. Gladwell has assembled -- the thrust of his argument is right on target.
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San Francisco Chronicle | 16 Nov 2008
With relentless curiosity and a keen fascination with significant details, he focuses on trends and illuminates the larger lessons he wants everyone to learn.
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The Guardian | 19 Jun 2009
. . .in an age that idolises success and celebrity, Gladwell's compelling popularisation is timely and even important.
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Kirkus Reviews | 1 Sep 2008
At times it seems an exercise in repackaged carpe diem, especially from a mind as attuned as Gladwell’s.
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The New York Times | 17 Nov 2008
. . .glib, poorly reasoned and thoroughly unconvincing.
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Open Letters Monthly
Luckily for him, Gladwell isn’t writing for intelligent readers. . .
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Book Reporter | 24 Jan 2011
. . .a provocative, consistently engaging, occasionally amusing work that has the potential to change the way we view the world. . .
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Boston Review
He wraps compelling stories and engaging characters around the kernel of research, delivering the academic material so entertainingly that readers may not even notice they have been schooled.
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Christian Science Monitor | 17 Nov 2008
Overall, it’s another winner from this agile social observer.
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The Telegraph | 8 Dec 2008
Some of Gladwell's ideas also border on internal inconsistency.
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The Guardian | 5 Dec 2008
As the book unfolds there is a hunger for something deeper and more profound that never turns up.
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Forbes
Gladwell combines a wonderful writing style with an incurably iconoclastic curiosity. . .
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The Washington Times | 23 Nov 2008
Instead of focusing on the idea of “10,000 hours” as an essential path to excellence, he dampens this theory with determinist conclusions about the role of chance.
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Publishers Weekly
Real life is seldom as neat as it appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book.
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