> I take your point, but there books that are hundreds or thousands of years old that still help to illuminate the human condition and that people can learn fro

> I take your point, but there books that are hundreds or thousands of years old that still help to illuminate the human condition and that people can learn from - Shakespeare, Plutarch, Herodotus etc. I don't know what you are responding to. I didn't claim there aren't old books which are useful. I am taking exception to the unfounded claim about old classics being the real books. Personally, I find Shakespeare trash. I would rather re-read "Lord of the flies" or "To kill a mockinbird" than subjecting myself to the Shakespearean torture. > I'd take those over some buzzword laden piece of Gladwell-lite that will be irrelevant in five years. Tell me how Bill Gates reading about college students not getting much out of education(and actually acting on it) is not better by eons to Bill Gates reading Hamlet. How does it matter no one will remember about "state of education in the 21st century" 100 years down the road?