Phew

Corresponding to my goal to read more non-fiction books, I have kickstarted the new semester with Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success and Robert Levine's The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold. Truth to be told, I am very much relieved when I am writing this post. It is simply because I have finally finished reading these two books after one and a half month of carrying them around (not really, but I usually tried to read them when I was waiting for bus, lectures to start or before I slept.

I initially thought of reading The Tipping Point instead of Outliers but I couldn't find it on the bookshelves (probably getting misplaced). What a disappointment. Anyway, Outliers was brilliant. It presents to u that, despite the popular belief, successful people don't get to where they are just because they are hardworking, ambitious and passionate. The question we should be asking by now is "why do some people succeed far more than others?". Hence, the book argues, it takes more than personal merit to be Bill Gates or a star athlete or to be lifted onto the top rung or to be extremely good at Mathematics. And the book looks into it by dividing into two parts - opportunity and legacy followed with examples and statistics which the society itself tends to overlook.

I have always believed that environment plays an important role to shape a person, be it his personality or future. But I have never done more research or reading on it before. So this book is really an eye-opener and the chapters which I enjoyed the most - The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1 & 2 where the comparison between Chris Langan and Robert Oppenheimer - two very brilliant young students, each of whom ran into a problem that imperiled his college career but they ended up having distinctly different lives is being highlighted. Then I realize, I won't be extraordinary successful. I didn't even receive much of the middle-class parenting style "concerted cultivation" (heavily involved in their children's free time, shuttling them from one activity to the next etc).

" It's an attempt to actively "foster and assess a child's talents, opinions and skills." Poor parents tend to follow, by contrast, a strategy of "accomplishment of natural growth." They see as their responsibility to care for their children but to let them grow and develop on their own. Lareau stresses that one style isn't morally better than the other. The poorer children were, to her mind, often better behaved, less whiny, more creative in making use of their own time, and had a well-developed sense of independence. But in practical terms, concerted cultivation has enormous advantages. "

Having said that, I was thankful that my mom did a good job at encouraging me to read and write since I was only 6 years old. She would make me a scrapbook with all the articles or essays she had cut down and collected from the newspapers and as I grew older, she ordered books and magazines for me (it was a luxury since it was quite a huge expense 15 years ago). Although she didn't sign me up for piano lessons etc, she is the reason why I love books so much. :)

(I might or might not write on Robert Levine's The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold)