Oy the tedium. Go ahead and make your split second decision but make sure you’ve taken pains to eliminate the possibility of prejudice. Did I miss anything? Where was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book when I needed it? It took me weeks to get through this book. it’ll have to be a cold day in you know where before I pick up The Tipping Point.

Great audiobook, and I think perfect for that medium. Gladwell also excels at story weaving—starting an example, giving more information, then more story, then more information/research, then concluding the story.

There are a lot of people I want to recommend read this book—my brother for the Marine who won the war game thing (reminds me a lot of an uncle), my third grade teacher for the story of the cops who shot Diallo. I was personally fascinated by the study of facial expressions and musculature and would love to read more about that.

But the shortcoming of this book is that it doesn’t really help one be more blink-ful, or blink-wise. It isn’t a self-help book. There is also research in the book that I don’t particularly buy the premise of, such as that having trouble categorizing disparate things into falsely dichotomous categories reveals culturally ingrained biases.

But it is a fascinating listen, engaging, and I’ll be looking for anything else he has written for his style is terrific.

When I picked up this book, I was hoping by the end that I would be better equipped to make those “thinking without thinking” sort of judgments more reliably. While there was a lot of interesting and thought provoking stuff in the book, I felt like I missed the “meat” I was after, in that there was no lesson in how to apply everything. Mostly, the book just prompted me to look further into other research, which Gladwell summarized in the book.

Like James, I read this as an audio book and I agree Gladwell was a good reader. I also agree that it warranted all the attention I could give it, which can be difficult with audio books since I usually listen to them while multi-tasking or falling asleep. In fact, I might listen to the last chapter again since I was distracted.

Anyway, this book was fantastic. I even wished it was longer. The diversity of examples made it a really interesting read. The downside I guess is that there wasn’t a strong, cohesive takeaway (unlike The Long Tail). When the book is done, I know that intuition and thin-slicing are critical and can provide a much more reliable basis for decision-making than we give them credit form. But it’s clear that these techniques don’t apply in many, many cases and I’m not certain where to apply them. I guess what I know is that I should not apply them to the way people look and that thin-slicing is most valuable in an area where you are an expert, whether that’s professionally or personally.

Regardless of all that, Blink reaffirmed my need to consider intuition heavily in a decision I need to make this week. I am very happy about the timing of the read. :)

I actually listened to the audiobook version of this, purchased from Audible, and it is read by Malcolm Gladwell himself. It was the first audiobook that I have listened too.

A few points…

• Gladwell is a great reader to listen to, he adds the right amount of enthusiasm to his speech without being over the top. I couldn’t always clearly discern when he was reading the dialogue of people speaking in his text.
• Listening to an audiobook requires alot more engagement than I had expected. I listened to it whilst walking or on the bus, but am not sure I would have got as much out of it as if I had just been sitting in a chair with my eyes closed (but then I may have fallen asleep if too relaxed!)
• I had hoped that the iPod/Audible integration would result in better navigation of audiobooks, perhaps by providing a table of contents and navigation in this fashion.

The book gives a great mix of theory and practical application for those moments when we ‘know’ something without knowing why.

I strongly believe in instinct and intuition, this book cuts through the layers and allows us to see thin slicing in true operation.

A big thumbs up!

I enjoyed this more than ‘The Tipping Point’ Gladwell’s other book. I was first intrigued by the beginning with the Art History piece (having majored in Art History).

Many valid points are brought up in this book. It is thought provoking and coversation evoking. It falls into the genere of non-fiction Freakonomics type of coming to random conclusions based on facts and research.

Try it out! It is very popculture.

I picked it up at the Seattle airport after unexpectedly finishing the book I brought for the flight. I whole heartedly believe in the concept. The various antidotes to back it up are interesting in a trivia sort of way. Yet I’m not drawn to it. It’s a short book that could probably be even shorter.