TOW Post 3: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

In the book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell aims to shift his readers view on what truly makes people successful.  He offers many different views on different “outliers” from simple junior hockey players to the greats of the Beetles.  He points out little know facts about these people which help to craft them into the characters they become, and share how those small details on the side are the true contributors to the lives they ended up living.  Gladwell is an incarnation of his own idea of 10,000 hours.  He has been working as a journalist at the New Yorker for almost two decades and is now coming out with his fifth book this year and it looks to be as big a hit as his first four.  His first two books have sales in the millions and has had his writings named some of the best non-fiction works.  He does have an odd writing style however.  All of his ideas come in the form of anecdotes.  Gladwell likes to tell short stories of the ideas that exemplify his points so that it is not simply an abstract idea but one that is demonstrated by real people, some of them even being household names.  This style of writing really helps him in getting his ideas across to his reader.  By giving examples for his points he can ground his ideas not in abstract language but something that a reader could go out and look up.  Gladwell also does a good job of diversifying his stories, talking about anything from athleticism, in hockey, to computer programmers, in Bill Joy, to the biggest billionaires the world has ever seen, like Rockefeller.  The issue with this style though is that it has gained a lot of criticism.  It has been critiqued because it only shows small ideas to prove a bigger point.  Many people further criticize Gladwell simply because he is a journalist and not a scientist.  No matter what the criticism however Gladwell continues to write interesting pieces with different ideas, and Outliers is no outlier.