Malcolm Gladwell all over the place

In the L.A. Times yesterday, Susan Salter Reynolds reviewed Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers: The Story of Success," his third book. Like its predecessors, "The Tipping Point" and "Blink," the book seeks to show us the world in a new way. Salter Reynolds writes:

We are used to looking at success, Gladwell explains in the opening chapter, as an individual story. But in fact, successful people "are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. . . . It's not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't."

The review leaves me wanting a little more. If where (and who) a person comes from determines his success, wouldn't siblings follow identical paths? How can my small Rhode Island town produce both a Colorado ski instructor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author? Luckily, I don't have to look very far to get more Gladwell, because his book is popping up everywhere. As is he: Next week he'll make appearances in England, and the following week he'll be in Canada.   

Where to find the ubiquitous Gladwell online:

• An admiring feature in New York magazine
• An admiring feature in Time magazine
• An admiring feature in the Guardian
• An admiring feature in the Independent
• An admiring blog post on Boing Boing
• The Christian Science Monitor reviews "Outliers"
• Entertainment Weekly reviews "Outliers"
• Salon reviews "Outliers"
• The New York Times reviews "Outliers"
• The New Yorker-focused blog Emdashes chases down even more Gladwell links, including videos of his 2007 and 2008 New Yorker festival appearances

And after the jump, Malcolm Gladwell visits the Barnes & Noble interview show Tagged.

As for my question, I don't see it getting answered anywhere. Luckily, I've got the book right here.

—Carolyn Kellogg

Photo credit: Kevin P. Casey / For The Times

Comments

[Hubert Reid]

The Guardian's other estimation of Gladwell (via The Digested Read) is not so admiring and rather more accurate:

"If [Gladwell] had been born 60 years ago, [he] would have been an unknown. But luckily, society now rewards chancers having a bad hair day."

[Tim Barrus]

Malcolm Gladwell is right. His thesis that it's about where you are FROM applies to publishing perhaps more than any other cultural institution. My whole POINT as Nasdijj was to say exactly that. No one cares what you WRITE. Or how well you write it. This is publishing's dirty little secret only it's not so secret. It's about who you ARE (and who you know) which is directly related to where you are FROM which is about more than the idea of place. PLACE is also the idea and the reality of CLASS. -- Tim Barrus, Paris