Finding books worth the time is hard. There are a lot of books and not a lot of time. This recent book looked provocative.
The book looks similar to The Mundanity of Excellence – a paper on the stratification of high-performers that I re-read almost once a year. So an entire book on it might be worth the time.
Then I read one of the featured blurbs.
“Geoff Colvin has written a fascinating study of great achievers from Mozart to Tiger Woods, and he has brilliantly highlighted the fact that great effort equals great success.I agree, and Talent Is Overrated is not only inspiring but enlightening. It’s a terrific read all the way through.”
-Donald Trump
Blurbs signal – or in this case countersignal – whether a book might be worth reading. I might be missing out on good books by using this heuristic, but avoiding books with blurbs written by a person renowned for how little he reads is probably a safe strategy. (No comment on the President’s competency in relation to his reading habits, plenty of successful people are not known for reading prolifically).