Range by David Epstein is a simple book, in many ways. Simple in its core message, simple in structure, and simple to remember.
The core message could easily have been summed up in a 2-pager, but it wouldn’t be compelling without reading through all the argumentation and examples.
When learning to solve problems in an unkind learning environment (that’s most of life) it’s preferable to have range across many fields rather than specialisation in one field.
One of the implications is that early specialisation in one field for children and teens is usually not optimal for long term performance.
It’s a hopeful book in many ways, and it gives me hope that it’s not too late (at any time) to choose a total switch of specialisation.
The core idea: In almost all situations, prefer breadth over depth in domain expertise.