Saturday, September 08, 2007

Gladwelliana

I don't feel like I need to go on and on about either book, but Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Blink are both as readable & absorbing as they're reputed to be. His larger points feel a bit artificial, but the details & anecdotes are fascinating. (The connecting theme, broadly, is unintuitive social science observations.) As the friend who lent me The Tipping Point said, it's like a really long, well-written New Yorker article.

(I'm not going to back up "his larger points feel a bit artificial," since I'd have to go on and on a little bit, and it isn't exactly shocking that a popular nonfiction book's title catchphrase isn't robustly worked out from the data. Also I think my laundry should be ready to come out of the dryer.)

See also: ketchup article.

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