100 Books That Defined the Decade

David Epstein, The Sports Gene (2013)

Without both genes and environments, there are no outcomes.

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Essential stats:  Epstein’s exploration of the impact of both nature and nurture on athletic performance was a New York Times bestseller, and was nominated for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing.

Why was it defining? Epstein took on sticky topics—race, upbringing, gender, and culture—in an accessible, scientific attempt to answer the question: what makes a professional athlete (and what doesn’t)? He defies accepted knowledge (like the 10,000 hour rule) and while he doesn’t come up with an answer, per se, as Richard Moore puts it, his embrace of ambiguity leads to “a much deeper truth.”

Watch Epstein’s TED Talk: