I’m pissed. Bestselling nonfiction books have been lying to me. I know I shouldn’t care so much about this, but these books hold an odd level of cachet in our world. Books like those by Steven Levitt (Freakonomics) or Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers) have ideas that I used to take seriously. But seem to go viral throughout culture, shaping the way we think and talk about the world.
I used to love these books. They were so easy to read, full of compelling stories, and they made me feel smarter. I’d learn about the “10,000-hour rule” from Malcolm Gladwell, which claimed that achieving mastery in any field requires 10,000 hours of practice. Or, in Freakonomics, I’d read about the surprising power of names—how the name you give your child might influence their success in life.
But then I learned something that fundamentally changed how I view these works: they are well told, interesting, and engaging but not necessarily true. Even Malcolm Gladwell himself has admitted this. In an interview, he said, “I am a story-teller, and I look to academic research… for ways of augmenting story-telling.”
Take the 10,000-hour rule, for instance. Gladwell drew on research by psychologist Anders Ericsson, but Ericsson himself didn’t create or even agree with the rule. He explained that it misinterpreted his work, which emphasized the importance of deliberate practice—focused, intentional effort—rather than just clocking hours. Ericsson also took issue with how Gladwell too a single study and generalized it across all domains. He reduced his nuanced findings to a catchy and misleading idea.
Or how about how Steven Levitt, in Freakonomics, makes a point about how non-standard names, particularly those in African American communities, can have long-term impacts on individuals, potentially influencing how they are perceived and treated in society. As part of this argument, he recounts the story of two boys supposedly named “OrangeJello” and “LemonJello,” pronounced “Or-ahn-juh-lo” and “Le-mon-juh-lo.” However, as it turns out, this is a well-known urban legend that has been debunked repeatedly. The story has no credible evidence to support it and perpetuates stereotypes rather than offering substantive analysis.
I learned about Freakonomics’ shaky facts from the podcast If Books Could Kill. This podcast critically examines influential books, adopting a tone reminiscent of kids in the back of the room aiming spitballs at the professor—but that’s the point. These books should be much easier to debunk than they are. It’s not that If Books Could Kill is right either; rather, it encourages us to think more critically about the books.
For years, I read these books like their arguments were gospel. But now I know better. Stories don’t hold the whole truth—and sometimes, they don’t hold any truth at all. If I want to find the truth, I’ve got to dig deeper, look at things from every angle, and ask more questions. And one thing’s for sure: if I’m searching for the truth, I’m not going to find it from Malcolm Gladwell.
So why bother with these stories at all? Because they’re entertaining. Gladwell is a fantastic storyteller. His work is fun to read, beautifully crafted, and there’s a lot to learn from the way he tells a story. But here’s the thing: no story is fully true. Even the best-told ones leave out details, gloss over complexities, or shape the facts to fit a narrative. And for every well-told story that bends the truth, there are countless others—sloppier, less thoughtful, and just as untrue. The lesson isn’t to avoid stories like these, but to always approach them critically, even when they sound like they should be true.
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