Outliers: #5 What might explain the fact that not all Nobel winners come from the best colleges, other than Gladwell's IQ "good enough" claim?

Outliers: #4 "Look at the time of year techies were born. Do the dates support the year of claim?"

Outliers: #3 What problems might there be in Gladwells' list of history's richest individuals?

Outliers: #2 "What's the 10,000 hour rule?"

Outliers: #1 "When does a Canadian hockey player want to be born? Why does it matter? "

Twitter Book Club - "How To's"

How we got here: it's simple. A few tweets back and forth between a couple of twitter friends, then next thing you know a Twitter Book Club was born.

What we are here to do: it's simple. We are here for a love of reading, for a love of sharing thoughts, for a love of stimulating our minds, and challenging ourselves to dig deeper by opening our minds up to dialogue and healthy debate around our Readings. 

A few simple guidelines so we have a meaningful experience here:
1. Read the book - This may seem obvious, but it is the most important step, so it is worth stating. It is a good idea to plan on finishing the book a little earlier than you might otherwise so that you have time to think about it and prepare before your book club meets.
2. Write down important page numbers - If there are parts of the book that made an impact on you or that you think may come up in discussion, write down the page numbers so that you can access the passages easily while preparing and leading your book club discussion.

3. Come up with eight to ten questions about the book

Book List - December: "OUTLIERS" by Malcolm Gladwell

 "Why do some people succeed far more than others?" 

There is a story that is usually told about extremely successful people, a story that focuses on intelligence and ambition. In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell argues that if we want to understand how some people thrive, we should spend more time looking around them -- at such things as their family, their birthplace, or even their birth date. The story of success is more complex -- and a lot more interesting - than it initially appears.

Outliers explains what the Beatles and Bill Gates have in common, the extraordinary success of Asians at math, the hidden advantages of star athletes, why all top New York lawyers have the same resume, and the reason you've never heard of the world's smartest man - all in terms of generation, family, culture, and class. It matters what year you were born if you want to be a Silicon Valley billionaire, Gladwell argues, and it matters where you were born if you want to be a successful pilot. The lives of outliers - those people whose achievements fall outside normal experience - follow a peculiar and unexpected logic, and in making that logic plain Gladwell presents a fascinating and provocative blueprint for making the most of human potential.

In the Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell changed the way we understand the world. In Blink he changed the way we think about thinking. Outliers will transform the way we understand success.

MALCOLM GLADWELL is the author of the #1 international bestsellers The Tipping Point and Blink. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and was formerly a business and science reporter at the Washington Post. For more information, about Malcolm Gladwell, go to www.gladwell.com.