Books like Outliers: The Story of Success

01

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

A kindred psychology read.

02

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

David Epstein · Science

Range is David Epstein's argument against the ten-thousand-hours gospel.

A kindred psychology read.

03

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Angela Duckworth · Psychology

Duckworth's central claim is that talent is overrated.

A kindred psychology read.

04

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Malcolm Gladwell · Psychology

Blink is Malcolm Gladwell's argument that fast, unconscious decisions — the ones made in the first two seconds of encountering something — are often just as reliable as slow, deliberate analysis, and sometimes more so.

A kindred psychology read.

05

The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell · Psychology

The Tipping Point is Malcolm Gladwell's argument that social change happens in sudden, dramatic ways — the same way a virus tips into an epidemic — and that understanding the mechanics of those tipping moments lets you engineer them.

A kindred psychology read.

06

Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

Adam Grant · Psychology

Give and Take is Adam Grant's argument that the least intuitive kind of person — the giver, who helps others without expecting immediate return — actually ends up at the top of most social and professional hierarchies, not just the bottom.

Both dig into success.

07

The Art of Choosing

Sheena Iyengar · Psychology

Sheena Iyengar's research career is built around one of the most consequential experiments in consumer psychology: the jam study.

Both dig into culture.

08

The Perfection Trap

Thomas Curran · Psychology

The Perfection Trap is a social psychologist's case that perfectionism isn't a personality quirk or an asset but a cultural epidemic — and that rates of perfectionism have risen sharply over the past three decades, driven by specific social and economic forces.

Both dig into culture.

09

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

Daniel H. Pink · Psychology

Daniel Pink's When, published in 2018, applies the science of chronobiology and cognitive timing to practical decisions about when to do things.

Both dig into timing.

10

Art as Experience

John Dewey · Philosophy

Art as Experience, published in 1934, is John Dewey's attempt to rescue aesthetics from the museum pedestal and return it to ordinary life.

Both dig into culture.

11

Born Standing Up

Steve Martin · Memoir

Born Standing Up is Steve Martin's account of the decade-long grind that preceded his sudden, seemingly overnight fame as America's biggest stand-up comedian of the late 1970s.

Both dig into success.

12

Finite and Infinite Games

James P. Carse · Philosophy

Finite and Infinite Games is James Carse's 1986 philosophical meditation on two fundamentally different ways of engaging with the world.

Both dig into culture.