Gladwell Returns

If you're reading this, as soon as you're done, turn off the computer, go to your car, drive to the nearest bookstore, and purchase 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell. This is an utterly fabulous book by someone who knows how to write. If the name Malcolm Gladwell rings a bell, it's because he wrote the Tipping Point, which has become an oft-used phrase in the early 21st century. Gladwell is a staff writer for the New Yorker who finds fascinating insights in the most unlikely places - the behavior of shoe retailers, or the multiple ways mayonaisse can be rated, for example - that manage to illuminate the way things work in a real and profound way. 'Blink' is probably not as profound as 'The Tipping Point', but its every bit as fascinating.

'Blink' is about the dangers of thinking too much. It's about the unconscious faculties our minds have for making brilliant deductions out of very small samples of evidence. It's also about how that process can be corrupted. I decided that if I was going to write about this book, I wouldn't give away any of its knockout anecdotes. And I won't. But I do want to say that I love the fact that decisiveness is celebrated in the book, probably because I like to think of myself as decisive. One of my favorite points from this book is that the more information you accrue, the less likely you are to make an accurate judgement, and if that sounds like balderdash to you, then you will love the book. It's a trip. Some of the best parts of it concern what happened when 4 white NY police fired 41 shots into an innocent black man one night in 1999. And if you think the explanationto that is just 'racism' that's just because I subconsciously primed you to think that way by by choice of words. The angle Gladwell takes is frequently surprising and often challenging. I don't know if the book even has a 'point', but regardless, its the most interesting thing I've read in months.