Review: Blink

We need to place more trust in our "thin-slicer"—our capacity to make instant judgments—but we also need to sharpen its edge more keenly with experience and education. Gladwell's second entry into the aren't-our-brains-amazing genre (The Tipping Point, 2000) has an Obi-Wan Kenobi flavor, a "trust-your-feelings-Luke" antirationalism that attempts, in some ways, to deconstruct the Force. The author's great strength lies in his stories, and here he crafts a number of engaging ones: an account of art experts fooled by a fake; a summary of how a psychologist, looking at an hourlong video of a married couple conversing, can predict with 95% accuracy if they will divorce; an unnerving narrative about the Millennium Challenge, a war game in which a maverick commander deals a devastating blow to the bean-counting rule-followers on the team that was supposed to win. There are stories of a rock star fighting the odds, of cops shooting an innocent man who looked suspicious, of Coca-Cola making a big marketing mistake. We learn about the Aeron chair, All in the Family, Lee at Chancellorsville. (Unconventional people sometimes surprise.) We ponder the odd political rise of Warren G. Harding. We have a power lunch with some professional food-tasters—the author quips that it was like cello-shopping with Yo-Yo Ma. We chat with a car-selling superstar. Gladwell also rediscovers something Poe described in "The Haunted Palace": our eyes and our faces are windows to the soul. He tells us that the autistic are unable to decode or even notice the facial information of others. All these stories are nicely written and most inform and entertain at the same time, but they don't add up to anything terribly profound, despite the author's sometimes Skywalker-ish enthusiasm. Brisk, impressively done narratives that should sell very well indeed, particularly to Gladwell's already well-established fan base.

Review: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

After his bestselling book brought the phrase "tipping point" into popular usage, which is that moment when an idea, product or concept suddenly catches fire with the population at large, Malcolm Gladwell now gives us two more phrases that are likely to become equally wellknown: "blink" and "thinslicing." We "blink" when we think without thinking. We do that by "thinslicing," using limited ... Read full review

Attractive title, strong explanation about our unconscious thoughts, but sudden ending. Would had been better if author is able to tell us how to harness our unconscious.

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Don't stop writing!
I have kite runner, outliers, tipping point. I need to get this as well. I think through the small cracks that most would miss, Gladwell fills these cracks with knowledge.

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"This a terrific book! The author does a deep analysis of how human decision making works with lots of cases. "

Reading _How We Decide_ reminded me of this book, which describes how quick, impulsive guesses are likely to result in the right choices. It's a fascinating read, but it doesn't really do much to explain why this is the case, or provide guidance for when it's untrustworthy.

Another cool book by Gladwell. Gives insight into when to be thoughtful and when to go with your gut.

The gist of the book was excellent -- many parts, less engaging, such as the soda, and police tactics after the first round of explanation. The theoretical premise made for interesting considerations. - Ruth D. Hochman