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Blink The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Malcolm Gladwell

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Recommended to me by Fred Oliveira

This one is a bit unsettling - how do I train my instinct and my gut?

It was an interesting concept, but I found Gladwell too repetitive. After the first few stories, I got it and nothing was really changing as it went on.

Almost done with this one. My first Malcolm Gladwell book. I like his writing style, and will probably read Outliers and The Tipping Point.

kstern replies...

If you'd like to borrow either The Tipping Point or Outliers I own both of those books. Tipping Point is really good, haven't read Outliers yet.

johnkary replies...

I will probably end up grabbing it from the library. I think they have 8 copies or so. Thanks, though!

So far I'm just getting relationship advice from this book. That seems wrong somehow...

I read this while flying between Sydney and Auckland. My hopes were it would be more edifying than watching whatever terrible documentaries they had on the in-flight computers. Sadly, this proved not to be the case.

Blink came out in 2005. And, if you've followed social media then you've already heard the anecdotes. Presumably, it's Gladwell's analysis of the primary sources that is the value behind the book. But I have read all the primary sources and already came to my own conclusions. Gladwell's weren't persuasive.

Excellent book. Anything more scholarly would be more than likely way too dry.

Would recommend this to anyone interested at all in psychology and how the mind works in rapid cognition. My favorite parts of the books were those when Gladwell pointed out how our biases and prejudices that come out whether we really believe we have them or not.

Gladwell's penchant for anecdotal examples mars the book in many ways. I feel that it could be a lot better if it tried to be a bit more structured in its approach and less "touchy-feely".

I put this book down forever before reaching page 100. I could tolerate The Tipping Point in all its boring, irritating obviousness until I realized that the tipping point in the mass adoption of the 'tipping point' meme came with the publication of The Tipping Point. I had to give this one a try just to keep up with whatever catchy but ridiculous pseudo-scientific mass-minded claptrap might come out of it. His style is to load up on cherry-picked tautological anecdotes while failing build a solid logical framework that holds up. So they just lay there, overripe and rotting on the ground.

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