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Outliers
- The Story of Success
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences
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The Tipping Point
- How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Discover Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough debut and explore the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and human behavior. The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate.
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A book by a guy who follows his own advice
- By Anonymous User on 2018-03-14
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Blink
- The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In his landmark best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant, in the blink of an eye, that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept?
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Interesting and well told, but.
- By Anonymous User on 2019-12-07
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Talking to Strangers
- What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
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Not as advertised
- By Adam Chan on 2020-02-06
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David and Goliath
- Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago.
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Yet another great look at the way we look at life.
- By Rob on 2018-11-07
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What the Dog Saw
- And Other Adventures
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has become the most gifted and influential journalist in America. In The New Yorker, his writings are such must-reads that the magazine charges advertisers significantly more money for ads that run within his articles. With his number one best sellers, The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, he has reached millions of readers and listeners. And now the very best and most famous of his New Yorker pieces are collected in a brilliant and provocative anthology.
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Light but Compelling
- By GTHA001 on 2018-09-18
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Atomic Habits
- An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
- Written by: James Clear
- Narrated by: James Clear
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving - every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
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An actually actionable self help book.
- By Mr P J Hill on 2019-07-07
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The Tipping Point
- How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Discover Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough debut and explore the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and human behavior. The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate.
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A book by a guy who follows his own advice
- By Anonymous User on 2018-03-14
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Blink
- The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
In his landmark best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant, in the blink of an eye, that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept?
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Interesting and well told, but.
- By Anonymous User on 2019-12-07
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Talking to Strangers
- What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
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Not as advertised
- By Adam Chan on 2020-02-06
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David and Goliath
- Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago.
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Yet another great look at the way we look at life.
- By Rob on 2018-11-07
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What the Dog Saw
- And Other Adventures
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Over the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has become the most gifted and influential journalist in America. In The New Yorker, his writings are such must-reads that the magazine charges advertisers significantly more money for ads that run within his articles. With his number one best sellers, The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, he has reached millions of readers and listeners. And now the very best and most famous of his New Yorker pieces are collected in a brilliant and provocative anthology.
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Light but Compelling
- By GTHA001 on 2018-09-18
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Atomic Habits
- An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
- Written by: James Clear
- Narrated by: James Clear
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving - every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
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An actually actionable self help book.
- By Mr P J Hill on 2019-07-07
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Never Split the Difference
- Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
- Written by: Chris Voss
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss' head.
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Insightful and practical.
- By Anonymous User on 2017-12-31
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Sapiens
- A Brief History of Humankind
- Written by: Yuval Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In Sapiens, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical - and sometimes devastating - breakthroughs of the cognitive, agricultural, and scientific revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology, and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities.
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I'll definitely listen to this again.
- By Shea Earl on 2017-11-25
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Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Written by: Daniel Kahneman
- Narrated by: Patrick Egan
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking. Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains....
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Very difficult to follow in audio format
- By Amazon Customer on 2017-10-06
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A Promised Land
- Written by: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 29 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
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I wanted to love this eAudiobook so much more
- By Laurie ‘The Baking Bookworm’ on 2020-12-19
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Greenlights
- Written by: Matthew McConaughey
- Narrated by: Matthew McConaughey
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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I’ve been in this life for 50 years, been trying to work out its riddle for 42, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last 35. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
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I can’t say enough good things about this book!
- By Ann on 2020-10-21
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Beyond Order
- 12 More Rules for Life
- Written by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In 12 Rules for Life, acclaimed public thinker and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson offered an antidote to the chaos in our lives: eternal truths applied to modern anxieties. Now in his long-awaited sequel, Peterson goes further, showing that part of life's meaning comes from reaching out into the domain beyond what we know, and adapting to an ever-transforming world.
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A continuation of greatness...
- By Colbie Grieve on 2021-03-02
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12 Rules for Life
- An Antidote to Chaos
- Written by: Jordan B. Peterson, Norman Doidge MD - foreword
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.
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Really tried, but couldn’t
- By Anonymous User on 2020-03-11
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Elon Musk
- Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
- Written by: Ashlee Vance
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley's most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs - a real-life Tony Stark - and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new makers.
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Hey Elon, you hiring?
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-05-05
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Think Again
- The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know
- Written by: Adam Grant
- Narrated by: Adam Grant
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people's minds - and our own. As Wharton's top-rated professor and the best-selling author of Originals and Give and Take, he makes it one of his guiding principles to argue like he's right but listen like he's wrong. With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, he investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, bring nuance to charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners.
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Woke academic with a bit of scientific insight.
- By Norm on 2021-03-09
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How to Win Friends & Influence People
- Written by: Dale Carnegie
- Narrated by: Andrew MacMillan
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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You can go after the job you want...and get it! You can take the job you have...and improve it! You can take any situation you're in...and make it work for you!
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Things you probably need repeated
- By gamut on 2018-09-19
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Can't Hurt Me
- Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
- Written by: David Goggins
- Narrated by: David Goggins, Adam Skolnick
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a US Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events.
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Awesome book!
- By Maryse on 2019-04-21
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Homo Deus
- A Brief History of Tomorrow
- Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams, and nightmares that will shape the 21st century - from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.
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Accept minor defects and enjoy this book
- By Reza on 2017-12-10
Publisher's Summary
In this stunning new book, 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.
Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
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What listeners say about Outliers
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kozmoe Fairly odd parent #2
- 2020-04-06
ok basic concepts
basic after chapter 5 don't waste your time 10000 hrs + = mastery overall decent
2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2019-02-24
Puts in perspective the true reasons of success
Biggest lesson: those who are outliers need both to work hard, and the ability to work hard
2 people found this helpful
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- Manvir singh
- 2020-08-08
Great book
I have listened first book from Malcolm but really do liked it it was somewhat boring in the start like just for a while but afterwards things started to get in perspective and everything got very interesting. The way he binded everything in the end by giving a personal example was exceptional and really great.
1 person found this helpful
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- Tom
- 2020-06-17
success should lead to gratitude, not pride
reminded me of the story of the husband who prepared a beautiful breakfast in bed for his wife on Mother's Day and brought it into the bedroom with his 3 year old who proudly announced that she had made her mother breakfast in bed. she had carried the orange juice after all. Gladwell shows how often our successes are often more due to the efforts of others, sometimes of generations before us. Books like his and Talking to strangers were written for these days as we confront racism, sexism and many other structures and begin to see our some social privileges are very real, just seldom if ever earned by their recipients
1 person found this helpful
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- Hala
- 2020-05-24
Nothing like Malcolm Gladwell in your ears
Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic story teller. He formats his arguments elegantly, and backs them up when he needs to. This book if anything, will give you something to think about. An advantage to this audiobook is that’s it’s read by the author, and he does a phenomenal job. I can listen to Gladwell all day, everyday
1 person found this helpful
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- Lester
- 2020-05-17
Great message but read it cover to cover!
The book holds a great message about how we may have a cognitive bias to give hard work ethic more weight than it should truly be credited. It reminds us that we are but a sum of our experiences and timings; however for much of the book it goes so far in this direction that it discredits hard work ethic too much and may validate certain people on why they haven't achieved all they've wished (when it could be they are just lazy!). In that, I think the book is too slow to acknowledging the power of hard work and how important it is to have a good head on your shoulders to seize opportunity! It is far more valuable to be street smart and creative than one may think!
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2020-03-28
very interesting approach to an original subject
loved the various very different stories to make the point the author was bringing forward.
thank you
1 person found this helpful
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- Patrick
- 2021-01-29
Great Book
I don't always agree with Gladwell's line of of argument, I think it's a little simplified, overgeneralized, and dismissive of the obvious counterarguments. But this is nonetheless an enjoyable book, worth a listen for sure.
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- Michael Jo
- 2021-01-12
Insight
Good story telling, very intriguing insights. Controversial 10000 hours rule but underlying message and insight very useful.
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- Andrea Richards
- 2021-01-11
The Achievers
I highly recommend this book.
It gave you clarify regarding people who became achievers.
You would be doing yourself an injustice if you don't read this book.
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- Leah C. Day
- 2009-09-14
Interesting
This was a pretty interesting book. I don't agree with all of the reasoning, but it's an interesting theory.
The one downside to this book is that if you're looking for motivation, it might work the opposite effect.
This book is about how luck and certain circumstances make you more likely to be successful such as your birthdate, ethnicity, and religion.
If you easily see your circumstances as beyond your control, you may read this book and feel disheartened that you're not lucky or have the right circumstances to be successful.
I believe luck is part of it, but drive and ambition are also important too. You DO have the power to alter your circumstances, even if you've not been given special advantages.
129 people found this helpful
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- Gaggleframpf
- 2019-09-30
Not Really About Outliers.
This books title leads you to believe that it's going to talk about statistical outliers, but it only nominally does that. Gladwell ignores actual outliers in the teeth of the statistical cases he presents.
One of the earliest examples he uses of "Outliers" are individuals in Canadian hockey teams. Because individuals are filtered into teams by their birthdates, the players with earlier birthdays, in January or February for example, have a year of growth ahead of those in the same league with birthdays in December or November, and therefore they are advantaged over those players every single year through school and on up into professional hockey. These players get more advantages because they continue to outperform the others, which causes them to get more advantages, which causes them to continue to outperform the others, ad infinitum. The result? There are a supermajority of professional Canadian hockey players with early birthdays, and a minority with late ones. So far, so good.
He then goes on to say that those with the early birthdays are the outliers that go on to achieve Hockey success later in life. But these only seem like outliers if you consider them against the majority of humans that aren't professional hockey players and never would be. In reality, statistically, the minority of players with birthdays in October through December that nevertheless reach professional status in Hockey and succeed ARE the real Outliers in his sample! They represent a minority but must be truly outstanding individuals, or at least more outstanding than those who succeeded merely because of their fortunate position and nominally superior maturity. These people would be interesting to learn about. He ignores them in his analysis. It's not even clear whether he knows the problem of their existence presents a problem for his thesis.
I wanted to read a book about statistical outliers -- truly outstanding people and what makes them up. Instead, Gladwell conveniently ignores many truly remarkable individuals in his quest to explain away accomplishments that have been reached through privileged position or status.
34 people found this helpful
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- GW Support
- 2019-02-15
Don’t dilute your potential with this book
This book’s entire theme is basically that chance determines your successes in life. Hard work, preserverence, determination, commitment and resilience are qualities that this book does not celebrate. Instead, it focuses on culture, upbringing, date of birth and chance. If you are looking for self improvement, I would highly recommend skipping this title and reading books like “The secret of the ages” by Robert Collier, “The power of your subconscious mind” by dr Joseph Murphy, “The richest man in Babylon” by George S. Clason etc.
11 people found this helpful
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- Scott T. Hards
- 2008-12-13
Engaging, but overrated
Outliers has many interesting statistical anecdotes sprinkled throughout, to be sure. My interest was held. But at its core, the book's central theme is simply "successful people are aided in their success by their families, culture, education and other chance factors. They could not have done it alone." This is not exactly a particularly profound revelation. Gladwell repeatedly asserts that most people think Bill Gates-type successes are simply due to that person's raw talent and little else. But is that really the case? Does anybody really think Bill Gates could have achieved what he did had he been born in Botswana, for example? What's more, while crediting these outside factors with making these "outliers" possible, he fails to note that in almost every case, hundreds if not thousands or even more other people had virtually identical birth situations, yet failed to achieve greatness. Gladwell's goal seems to be an attempt to take the shine off of society's great success stories by, in effect, claiming they just got lucky. But I think the formula for producing an outlier is more complex than that. Too often in this book, Gladwell seems to be profoundly stating the obvious.
Gladwell's narration of his own work is generally skillful and an easy listen.
336 people found this helpful
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- KevinH
- 2008-11-21
Captivating (if not an outlier)
Regardless of what you ultimately think of the author's analysis, Gladwell is a masterful storyteller, weaving together interesting anecdotes from such diverse sources as plane crash research to hillbilly feuds to standardized math tests. That Gladwell narrates the audio book himself adds greatly to the listening experience. Critics will complain that his thesis is obvious (that opportunity, cultural inheritence and hard work play key roles in success), or that his examples are selective and ignore in turn outliers that don't illustrate his points -- or, somewhat inconsistently, both. But Gladwell's books are successful because he examines phenomena and topics of importance in an accessible and entertaining way. No one should mistake Malcolm Gladwell for a big thinker like, say, Stephen J. Gould, but Gladwell would be the first one to tell you that he's no outlier. Don't accept everything the author says as truth revealed, but do listen to this book -- it's one of the best non-fiction offerings available through Audible.
170 people found this helpful
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- Sher from Provo
- 2012-04-12
Very Interesting!
Gladwell sets out to explain how the top people in any field were able to get there. The explanations can be very surprising. I was very engaged throughout the whole book. He talked a lot about education, and having been a public school teacher for the last 27 years, I found it absorbing, hopeful, and found myself wishing that I had known some of these things 27 years ago.
Gladwell narrates his own book, which sometimes turns out well, and sometimes not so much. Although obviously not a professional, he has a pleasing way of reading. I wouldn't be choosing a book on account of him reading it however. Still, it was very "listenable" and I enjoyed it very much.
21 people found this helpful
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- Robert W
- 2009-05-09
Intriguing but the research is questionable
This book is quite intriguing, but often as I listened I began to wonder about his research methodology. His facts, while compelling seem to be only part of the picture and I began to wonder as to how much picking and choosing of facts was going on to support his points. His determination to support his rather deterministic view is clear throughout the piece.
46 people found this helpful
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- Chris
- 2010-08-23
This book should be called 'selective evidence'
Whilst a lot of the ideas in this book are not Gladwell's alone, he takes responsibility for presenting them as if they were fact. Some parts are fascinating - such as the investigation of pilot errors which lead to crashes - but much of it falls woefully short of sound argument. The main points in the book are either obvious or highly questionable: intelligence alone is no trigger for success; luck is big factor in all great achievements; 10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve excellence at anything.
The examples he provides completely ignore the possibility that timing is not just luck, but actually a inherent quality of the thought process that goes into the idea of the business in the first place. Did Bill Gates really become so successful purely because he was: a) in the right place at the right time, and b) put in 10,000 hours of programming in an age when computers were hard to come by? By drawing these conclusions he overlooks the unprovable possibility that Gates may have become successful in another area had he not been born at the right time to start Microsoft.
Were the Beatles successful because of their 10,000 hours of practice in German nightclubs and the like before their 'breakthrough' US number one? Even if you ignore Gladwell's convenient use of their US breakthrough to mark his 10,000 hour cut-off (coming 18 months after their UK success), were they really successful because of the amount of practice they put in? Was it merely musical competence that raised them above their peers? What about inspiration, creative ideas, charisma, chemistry or pure unteachable songwriting genius? And what about the likes of Nick Drake, or Kurt Cobain, or Buddy Holly? They could not have possibly put in the 10,000 hours 'required' practice as prescribed by Gladwell. There must be hundreds or thousands more in the world of music, film, literature, or even business who do not conform to the 10,000 hour rule. Yet they are conveniently overlooked.
78 people found this helpful
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- Luiz C Payne
- 2009-03-07
Great audio book
The content was entertaining and fascinating. A lot of "oh wow" moments. What was really good was Malcolm's read. He is an excellent reader--right on point with his inflection and cadence. I thought it had to be a professional reader.
25 people found this helpful
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- Andrew
- 2011-11-28
Not as revelatory as you'd think
It takes lots of actual practice to master something. It also takes opportunities that are not in our control. So basically, Gladwell is trying to prove Calvinism (hard work + predestination). Pinpointing the web of circumstances that leads to success is something that we obsess over as a culture and Gladwell provides a very interesting analysis of how this works. But I do not feel like I heard any revelations here that I did not learn from my father when he encouraged me to get internships as an undergraduate.
8 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2019-02-27
Those who appear to be extraordinary are ordinary people
In this book, Malcolm does a study of many of the highly successful people we know to prove that it is not mostly what they were born with, that is having a higher IQ or having a special talent who got them where they got. They had to put a huge amount of work, they took advantage of their environment, the period where they were born, gifts from their past generations and more. The example of Bill Gates show it clearly that he was advantaged not only because he was born in a blessed period to get mature during the IT boom, but also, having access to an outfitted computer in 1968 when he was 13, during that same period, computers were so expensive that even professors in computer science barely had access to them, and programming was so complex, by the time he showed up at the Silicon Valley, he had more than 10 000 hours of programming in his fingers. Nearly all of us, if given same opportunities with the outliers, we will surely write the same stories, if not better.
The Asians do not have higher IQ than the rest of us, the just have more school time and work harder than the others, this is why the will outperform the rest of the world in maths and other scientific complex subjects. The example of the KIPP schools brought to the USA is a demonstration that working harder and for longer period can yield impressive results.
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-12-18
Une recette scientifique du succès
La théorie de l'auteur : le génie ne rencontre pas de succès sans baigner dans un environnement propice à la réussite, est bien démontrée et ce, de manière concrète avec des exemples passionnants. Ce livre permet de comprendre quel environnement est le plus fécond pour optimiser ses chances de réussites. Il offre aussi une lecture réaliste du succès : il ne suffit pas d'être doué, il faut travailler de manière acharnée.
J'ai adoré et je le recommande vivement, néanmoins trouvé que certains chapitres auraient gagné à être plus courts.
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- India nerjones
- 2020-08-31
fantastic as always
I never want Gladwell's books to end, Outliers was no exception. so fascinating and enjoyable.
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- Dvu
- 2020-06-03
Fascinating book about success
This book gives a very interesting point of views about success by analyzing the stories behind successful people, schools, companies and even societies. It shows that success derives from a combination of many factors including the time, family, race, tradition, etc. Having a high IQ is just not enough to guarantee a successful career. You also have to be born in a right time at a right place in a right family, to be given a chance at a right moment... but maybe the most important message is that all outliers put a lot of time and effort into what they do. There is no exception, no shortcut for success.
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- DG
- 2019-09-18
A different view on success.
Read by the author this book unwinds the perceived notion of success into what circumstances allowed them to be successful. It is one one my favorite books
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- Client d'Amazon
- 2018-03-20
clear and easy to listen
clear and easy to listen to while you are walking. enjoy his narration of success. insightful but not pretentious usual American bestseller. I think gladwell has improved a lot from Blink