The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else by Daniel CoyleMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book was an interesting study of the source of human talent. I happen to be reading another book I received from a friend on creativity which I will hopefully write about here when I finish it. It was interesting that both books shared some of same examples.
The Talent Code focuses on neurosciences and discoveries related to myelin. Myelin does seem to be very important, but I can't help but think they gave too much credit to that biological factor in an attempt to prove that there is no such thing as natural talent. And yet, with as much proof as they offered don't we all know somebody who is naturally talented at something? That is hard to reconcile. One last criticism is that several of their data points seem to exhibit confirmation bias. For example, they point out how many great contributors to society lost at least one parent in their youth and say that is a motivator to their success. Yet, they don't talk about the millions that lose parents and struggle to achieve even mediocre success in life.
With all of that said, I liked this book. I do have the feeling that when I finish the book on creativity I would probably recommend reading one or the other but not both.
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