Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

61%
13.06.17

Yes, this is the famous '10,000 hours' book, and it makes that case engagingly, if not particularly convincingly. Basically, [spoiler!] success is a mixture of hard work and luck. And this book is a mixture of repeatable anecdotes and forgettable links.

Alfred and Emily - Doris Lessing

56%
19.10.09

You could use her great age as an excuse for her detached and fragmented style, but I found the same with her first novel, "The Grass is Singing". This one made marginally more sense, at least if you can buy into the 'fictional (auto)biography' that comes before the more harshly real memoirs. Perhaps some interesting issues raised on women's roles, family relationships and what could have been, but otherwise unengaging.

Agent Zigzag - Ben Macintyre

57%
21.03.08



A well researched but strangely flat and lifeless biography of an extraordinary man.

Shakespeare - Bill Bryson

60%
31.12.07



Always thorough in his research, and engaging in its transmission, Bryson is a good choice to write a biography of Shakespeare, even if it's not really what the world needs. This slim volume distills several centuries of scholarship and conjecture into a clear overview of what is known of Shakespeare's life - but as that is hardly anything, Bryson must expand on others' theories. Only occasionally does he let himself loose with superatives - generally, a level-headed account.

Arthur & George - Julian Barnes

08.10.06
52%




The rest of my reading group loved this but I felt it was emotionally detached and rather dull. It was clever, but slightly anachronistic, and there was no spark. It does, however, have the distinction of being both fiction and biography.