Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Author: David Epstein

Though the topic of this book excited me, the book ultimately fell flat. I think the most interesting part of the book was early on when he set the stage for his point by comparing Tiger Woods with Roger Federer. Tiger Woods was raised to be an absolute specialist in his field, he practiced constantly from a young age, and devoted all his time to golf. Roger Federer by contrast was involved in many sports growing up and didn’t start tennis until later in life. Both athletes however were incredibly dominant in their sport.

Many see starting a child late on something as a disadvantage, but the authors point is this is not really true and kids can be equally as good (or as he tries to argue, even better) by focusing on a wide range of skills.

He brings up reading as an example. Everyone is always filled to the brim with pride when they say their kid started reading at X months. But he points out this isn’t that impressive in the grand scheme, because virtually all kids learn to read nowadays anyways, so who cares if one kid learns to read a few months earlier than average. What would be more impressive is if their level of comprehension was at X by X age instead for example.

That is about all I took away from the book. I agree with the premise and feel that it hits my confirmation bias as I prefer a generalist approach to life, but that doesn’t mean that this book has discovered a hard truth, and if it did, it didn’t show me a lot of evidence to prove it other than a bunch of stories about different people that fit his hypothesis.

In summary, this book was a disappointment. It is the definition of fluff. Very forgettable. It will be lost in the sea of books with catchy titles and little substance.

There has got to be a better way to figure out if a book is worth the read before devoting hours of time to it. I like Farnam Street’s suggestion of trying to read older books which have stood the test of time.