The Book
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2005.
He is the author of four books, "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference," (2000) , "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" (2005), and "Outliers: The Story of Success" (2008) all of which were number one New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, "What the Dog Saw" (2009) is a compilation of stories published in The New Yorker.
From 1987 to 1996, he was a reporter with the Washington Post, where he covered business and science. He graduated from the University of Toronto, Trinity College, with a degree in history. He was born in England, grew up in rural Ontario, and now lives in New York City.
from the author's website
What is an outlier?
"'Outlier' is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August when the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be an outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book I'm interested in people who are outliers - in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplieshed and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August."
Malcolm Gladwell, from the Reading Group Guide for Outliers, 2010
eReaders
Outliers is available on KindleFire devices in the Cal Maritime Library.