Obliquity

In Obliquity, John Kay argues that, sometimes, the shortest distance between two points isn't a straight line.

Such is Kay's principle of obliquity: that goals are sometimes best achieved indirectly. Naturally, the corollary of the argument is that too much focus or too direct an approach can actually be counterproductive, as when people overcomplicate what is otherwise simple or generally encounter difficult obstacles when approaching a problem head-on. Thus, sometimes the best results/discoveries/accomplishments are unearthed or achieved without initially meaning to do so -- directly, at any rate.

Now some may be compelled to ask: but isn't that obvious enough anyway? Perhaps. On balance, it would be fair to criticize Kay's underlying thesis as bordering on the simplistic, nevermind that it is insightful and entertaining, after a fashion. Indeed, it becomes apparent soon enough that Kay invokes a limited set of examples repeatedly to argue his point. Furthermore, he does himself few favors by presenting readers with a meandering discussion, apparently struggling to adapt his original article on obliquity, which appeared in his Financial Times column, into something deserving of a book-length treatment (which arguably it does not).

In that sense, Obliquity is less an exposition and more an extended manifesto of a straightforward idea, often discussed in a seemingly rambling fashion.

But then again, what else would one expect from a book about obliquity?