The blurb on the back of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell promises that this book will change the way you think about your life, and while I can't say it quite lived up to this claim for me, I can say that I found it both engaging and thought provoking.
The task that Gladwell sets for himself in this book is not an easy one: to examine the nature of success and to determine what it is that makes successful people, well, successful.
What I found extremely refreshing about this book is that Gladwell goes beyond the now very well worn (and usually *but not always* trite) territory of the self help gurus and explodes the myth of the level playing field.
Sometimes people are born in the right place at the right time, or they have the right cultural background, and this gives them a significant 'leg up' in life and puts them on the path to success.
Gladwell shows that the reverse of this is also true, and that being born in a particular place or at a particular time or coming from a particular cultural or socio-economic group can put you at a disadvantage in achieving certain things in life.
Throughout the book Gladwell uses many examples, stories, interviews and studies to illustrate his ideas about success.
I found the style of this book very readable and easy, and the tone is informal and engaging.
This is no dry academic tome, however I did feel that it lacks a good solid conclusion that would bring all of the elements of what Gladwell has been trying to illustrate throughout the book into some cohesive whole.
Well worth a read, but ultimately it didn't go deep enough into the subject matter to really change the way I think about anything.