Thursday, February 5, 2009

My new favorite author

I finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success yesterday in a bookstore (I read the first half last Wednesday), and it was great.

I first learned about Gladwell after my favorite hip-hop band, The Roots, named an album after his book The Tipping Point. The first book of his that I looked at, Blink, was really interesting and enjoyable, so much so that I bought a copy for my girlfriend when we first started dating.

I didn't actually read all of Blink but always intended to do so. My girlfriend hasn't finished it yet, but hopefully I'll get my hands on it soon. Especially now that I've finished Outliers. I want to read The Tipping Point now too. Gladwell just writes so clearly and convincingly.

Outliers makes you look at how we usually view stories of success and why we're probably wrong. There are chapters about plane crashes, The Beatles, Bill Gates, and what rice paddies have to do with why Asians are so good at math, among other things. It's a fascinating book, and I highly recommend it.

For a taste of what the book is about check out the nice videos below:

Gladwell @ AIGA Business and Design Conference

Discussing Outliers on Charlie Rose

The third video below is a talk from around the time Blink first came out but cool nonetheless.
What We Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce

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