Outliers: Book summary and reviews of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers Summary

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 their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Outliers Reviews

"It is the seemingly airtight nature of Gladwell's arguments that works against him...he is free to cherry-pick those cases that best illustrate his points. Real life is seldom as neat as it appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book." - Publishers Weekly (Signature Review).

"It's all very readable, but not particularly surprising. " - Library Journal.

"[T]he author's lively storytelling and infectious enthusiasm make it an engaging, perhaps even inspiring, read. Sure to be a crowd-pleaser." - Kirkus Reviews.

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Malcolm Gladwell Author Biography

Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine since 1996. His 1999 profile of Ron Popeil won a National Magazine Award, and in 2005 he was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People. He is the author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, (2000) and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), both of which were number one New York Times bestsellers; as well as Outliers (2008) and What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009).

From 1987 to 1996, he was a reporter with the Washington Post, where he covered business, science, and then served as the newspaper's New York City bureau chief. He graduated from the University of Toronto, Trinity College,...

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