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Outliers Early Returns

I’ll reserve final judgment until I’ve finished the book, but based on having read about two thirds of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers, yesterday I can tell you that The New York Times’s negative review is extremely wrongheaded. He’s tackling a much more important subject than in The Tipping Point or Blink, and I’d say he’s delivering. This slim, highly readable volume almost certainly isn’t the definitive last word on the question of what makes people succeed, but it’s a really brilliant summary of most of the currently available research. I really only wish it were longer so that it could explore certain points in more detail, but leaving you with the feeling that you haven’t read enough is far from the worst problem a book can have.

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