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From Mybrary
[edit] Welcome to my Library!
| Progress: 43/1,024 books cataloged! |
This wiki is dedicated to one purpose: cataloging my own personal book collection. Along the way, I'll write summaries and reviews of the books I own, and create pages for favorite authors, quotes, etc.
[edit] Newest Review
Along with cataloging my books, I'm gradually adding reviews of the ones I've read. Here is the newest one:
[edit] 5/12/2009 - Outliers
| Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, takes an interesting and heretofore unique approach to the topic of success. It counters the claim that success is achieved solely through genius and hard work. Gladwell does his best to isolate the roles of opportunity and culture as the determining factor behind success.
Essentially, Gladwell's thesis is that the accident of when a person is born, and into what type of family he or she is born, has as much to do with success, if not more, than natural talent or ability. Although he makes sure to note that talent and hard work have their part to play, Gladwell asserts that they are not enough on their own to reach the highest levels of success. His examples are convincing, although they were, no doubt, specifically chosen to support his claims. It is left as an exercise to the reader whether the role of opportunity is so strong in all cases as it is in the specific cases he mentions. Less convincing is the second section of the book, in which Gladwell examples cultural factors. His conclusions are interesting, especially in regards to the way language structure plays an impact in the perception of relative power in conversation. Occasionally, though, his logic is tenuous. Gladwell leaps straight from a discussion of 18th century Appalachian culture into an experiment that supposedly demonstrated a difference in attitude between Southerners and Northerners. He seemingly draws a connection between the two, although he is unable to account for how a set of attitudes born of a marginal, herd-based, mountain community would spread across the entire Southern U.S.—much less how it would be maintained in the modern world. Gladwell makes a compelling hypothesis, but I believe in his attempt to isolate the effects of culture and opportunity, he instead downplayed the influence of other factors. If nothing else, he's given sociology students a fertile source for future research and experimentation. |  |
[edit] Newly Added
Below are the last books that have been added to this wiki:
[edit] 5/18/2009 - The Decameron
The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, is a group of one hundred light stories, remarkable for their humor and occasionally racy content. The frame of the book deals with a group of noblemen and women who tell these stories to each other while at a rural retreat to escape from the plague.
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The Inimitable Jeeves is the first Jeeves and Wooster novel, or perhaps a series of interconnected short stories. Either way, it's the story of Bingo Little's quest for a life partner.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - The Clicking of Cuthbert
The Clicking of Cuthbert, by P.G. Wodehouse, introduces the Oldest Member and the whole genre of Wodehouse golf stories.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - Jill the Reckless
Jill the Reckless, by P.G. Wodehouse, is another Wodehouse story set on Long Island—a setting I've come to appreciate more since moving to Long Island myself.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - A Damsel in Distress
A Damsel in Distress, by P.G. Wodehouse, is the first non-Jeeves and Wooster story by Wodehouse that I read. In fact, I believe it's the first one that I actually read, instead of listened to on audiobook.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - Bill the Conqueror
Bill the Conqueror, by P.G. Wodehouse, features the perfect mix of vintage Wodehouse characters, exciting chases, disapproving uncles, and the like.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - God's Politics
God's Politics, by Jim Wallis, is a discussion of the role of Christian morality in politics, and how neither party truly reflects it.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt, is a slightly-fictionalized account of the true story of a trial in Savannah, Georgia.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - Beowulf
Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, is a beautiful translation of the anonymous Old English poem, side by side with the original text.
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[edit] 5/16/2009 - A Star Called Henry
A Star Called Henry, by Roddy Doyle, is the story of the 20th Century through the eyes of a larger-than-life figure who lived it.
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[edit] 5/15/2009 - Piccadilly Jim
Piccadilly Jim, by P.G. Wodehouse is a comic story of one man's redemption from an inveterate playboy to a man worthy of the love of the woman he wronged.
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