Blink
Malcolm Gladwell, 2005
265 pp.
July 2008
We're smarter than we know, according to this engaging book. In his second non-fiction book, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) writes about the part of our brains that lets us know things without knowing how we know.
It turns out our intuitive hunches—or rapid cognition—can be more dependable than the high-powered reasoning part of our brains.
Gladwell offers some fascinating examples—from discerning a museum fake or the health of a marriage to winning elaborate Pentagon war games.
This is an interesting read, packed with thought-provoking information and anecdotes. At times it seems contradictory and as if Gladwell is using a bit of filler to push the covers farther apart. But that's okay because it's fun-going and, for book clubs, offers opportunities for good discussion . . . especially the section on diagnosing relatioships. I enjoyed Blink (as in knowledge you intuit . . . in the blink of an eye) quite a bit.
See our Reading Guide for Blink. Or see Reading Guides for all 4 of Gladwell's books.