After last week's feast, we're back to famine. But there are some treats...
Outliers: The Story of Success
By Malcolm Gladwell
In the fascinating Outliers: The Story of Success, New Yorker contributor Malcolm Gladwell, in analyzing and searching for a common thread among our developmental patterns, dismantles the myth of individual merit to explore how culture, circumstance, timing, birth, and luck account for success. We learn, for example, what Bill Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common: along with talent and determination, each enjoyed a "right place at the right time" opportunity to intensively develop a skill that allowed them to rise above the norm. In addition to this carpe diem run amuck, there was also some "demographic luck" involved. Gladwell contends, for instance, that being born in the decades of the 1830s or 1930s was an considerable advantage for any future entrepreneur, as both saw economic booms and demographic depressions in the fact that class sizes were small, teachers were overqualified, universities were seeking higher enrollment and companies needed employees. Possibility, the author posits, comes "from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with."
Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy, and Stupid
By Dr. Denis Leary
Now, on the other end of the success spectrum is Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy, and Stupid. Amen. For "A pissed off Leary is the best Leary," says one critic of the comic and writer, creator, and star of the Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated TV series Rescue Me. In fact, Denis Leary — between musing on his Irish Catholic upbringing, the folly of celebrity, and the pressures of family life — seethes so sardonically acid-tongued on the politically hypocritical, the religiously cynical, irritating children, and infuriating cats, that we forgive him his legitimate use of his honorary doctorate from his alma mater. And we almost forgive his love of Oprah.
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Article comments
1 - Heloise
Hey thanks for promoting my book review. I read that book in one night. I like your bio, I think. Why a leprous horse thief? Wierd but there is truth in jest.
Heloise
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Too many who believe in reincarnation seem to have came back as, say, Nefertiti or Napoleon. Somebody somewhere has to have been relegated to the level of a horse thief or a leper. Why not me? So I've nominated myself and consolidated the "job description."