Reading books is extremely important However, as a nitpick, I don't think you're going to "beat the experts" as a "contrarian outsider" by reading books like M

Reading books is extremely important However, as a nitpick, I don't think you're going to "beat the experts" as a "contrarian outsider" by reading books like Man's Search For Meaning and Lee Iacocca's autobiography. Aside from the dubious value of building one's brand as a "contrarian", you're not going to get any information the experts don't have if your reading list looks like you grabbed the first 10 books you saw at the business paperback section at the airport book store. That's not to say these aren't valuable books. But it's IMO a truly odd collection if your lead in is talking about contrarianism. Completely separate point on the topic of branding as contrarian: One of the authors, Thomas Sowell, is mainly known for being politically conservative in a predominantly liberal field. That might unintentionally reinforce the impression that "contrarianism" means "I align closely with my in-group but my in-group is not the largest in-group." Whereas I would suspect that we wouldn't call a protestant in a predominantly Catholic country a "contrarian" or vice versa. But perhaps it's about trying to rebrand belonging to an unpopular identity with a kind of renegade status.