Let's Book Club! Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers, I think, is best viewed as a series of New Yorker/New York Times articles rather than a serious attempt to understand success, since, as a whole, the book doesn't really make a coherent point from start to finish. I mean, the book's thesis is essentially that our conceptions about living in a meritocracy are false, that we don't live in one, and he doesn't attempt to connect each chapter of the book through his idea. So, in that sense the book is a failure. If, on the other hand, you're willing to look past that and view the book as a bunch of typically snappy magazine articles then I think you're going to enjoy the book a heck of a lot more...

Grade: C+ (and yes, this is the first book to not receive an 'A'...)


Also: I recently finished reading Bifocal for school. If you've got a son/daughter, niece/nephew, etc. who's roughly in the Grade 8 age range it's worth picking up for them.

Next up: Slam by Nick Hornby... somebody really needs to loan me a book...