Book Review: "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

Let me first explain my motivation for reading this book. At NECC this year there was a book store. In this book store there were maybe 100 different books. Each of these books was stacked about three of four high. It was a happy, humble little conference book store. Except for one corner. In one corner of the book store there was a large display of one book--probably more than 500 copies of this one book. This one book was "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. Hmmm, off to the library I go to find out why this book is so important.

Surely you didn't expect a book with importance of this magnitude would be immediately available at the library. It wasn't. I dutifully placed myself on the waiting list, and in the meantime decided to check out one of Gladwell's previous books, "Blink." Oops.

I read the book. The most important thing that I hope that you take away from this brief review is this: Malcolm Gladwell is full of crap. "Blink" is a book (supposedly) about the power of immediate thought. It can be summarized like this: You should trust your very first instinct of thought, except when you shouldn't, unless you are a mind reader, then you always should.

I'd like to interject two bits of irony at this point. One, I knew within the first few moments of reading this book that it was BS. Sadly I did not trust that instinct and carried on with reading. Second, if anything can be understood within the first instant, then Malcolm Gladwell will repeat it at least twenty times. A talented writer could have written this same book in twenty pages or less.

Already I am tiring of talking about this book, so let me end by sharing one of the amazing inconsistencies in the book. In one chapter, Gladwell talks about a musician named Kenna who was recognized by industry professionals as a sure thing and an amazing talent, but unless people were able to see him and make a personal connection, they were mislead by their first thoughts and unable to recognize him as the musical genius that he was. A few chapters later, Gladwell discusses classical music and the process of screened auditions. Aparently current practices in auditioning for orchestras involves playing behind a screen so that the audience's first impression will not be swayed by their visual connections. Does it seem to anyone else that Gladwell is using exactly opposite examples to illustrate his point (a point that was already well understood a few pages).

No wait, let me end on a third irony. The book is subtitled "The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." Next time I'd like to see a lot more thinking and a lot less without thinking."

So, am I going to read "Outliers" now? Of course! It's just like watching the really bad auditions from American Idol. We just can't turn our eyes away.