Rito Ghosh reviewed The talent code by Daniel Coyle
Daniel Coyle, a revered journalist, spent years investigating the possible origins of skill. Whether it …
Review of 'The talent code' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is again one of those books that could be very aptly and sufficiently summarized into a long essay.
But no one pays $15 for an essay, and hence the book. I understand.
This book tries to push the idea of Myelin being the central element of acquiring skills and reiterates again and again that in-born skill is hugely overrated and what matters is deep practice and ignition. Very noble undertaking. No doubt.
However, there is a risk of platonicity. The risk of reducing something to a dogma-like existence where, in reality, it could be much more nuanced.
Also, I did not like the fact the book is too much focused on sports and music and not much on academics and science.
The book felt overly elongated, and unnecessarily done so. So I disliked reading through it.
Each character is provided a backstory, an introduction, the style of which felt …
This is again one of those books that could be very aptly and sufficiently summarized into a long essay.
But no one pays $15 for an essay, and hence the book. I understand.
This book tries to push the idea of Myelin being the central element of acquiring skills and reiterates again and again that in-born skill is hugely overrated and what matters is deep practice and ignition. Very noble undertaking. No doubt.
However, there is a risk of platonicity. The risk of reducing something to a dogma-like existence where, in reality, it could be much more nuanced.
Also, I did not like the fact the book is too much focused on sports and music and not much on academics and science.
The book felt overly elongated, and unnecessarily done so. So I disliked reading through it.
Each character is provided a backstory, an introduction, the style of which felt repeatative. And there is the jock like oversimplification where people are known as "myelin guy", or stuff like that.
Although, I learned a lot from this book. I am grateful that this book was written. For example, the tip to break down a skill into smaller components, and master them individually.
I recommend reading this book, but the RoI will not be ideal. You can learn stiff from it.
