|  | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Back Bay Books
List Price: $15.99
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Seller: kynanna
Rating:  1096 reviews
Sales Rank: 137
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0316010669
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.44
EAN: 9780316010665
ASIN: 0316010669
Publication Date: April 3, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: clean; no tears, stains a little underling (a little ink scribble on the front page) great book
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 1096
 An easy read packed with information November 13, 2009
Laurie Beebe (http://www.mycoachlaurie.com)
In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell outlines numerous stories to illustrate how our brain can reach conclusions without our conscious mind realizing how we came to that answer. Demonstrating instances of experts detecting forgeries, psychologists determining whose marriages will last, and how we can learn to read people's faces, Gladwell weaves these stories together to show why our first judgement may be our best, and how detrimental it can be to try figuring out why or how we "just know". It was interesting to learn the key to good improvisational comedy, what makes a good car salesman, and how people perceive to what degree they will like a food based on the packaging. If textbooks were this interesting and well written, kids would be chomping at the bit to do their homework!
 Ready to take a second look at life? November 11, 2009
N. Davis (Oakland, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Unlike The Tipping Point, which gave us terms like Influencer and Mavens, and spawned a tiresome new set of buzzwords and "influencer" marketing companies, Blink may not have that handy instantly-applicable nugget that transforms your business or spiffs up your next presentation. And yet, like everything I've read from Gladwell, it is well worth reading. Why? Because it will make you think, and if you apply its lessons, become a better, more thoughtful and aware human being. (And ok, there are a few things that might help you do better in job interviews, for example--see p. 56, for example.)
As usual, Gladwell's writing strikes that perfect balance between research and analysis, anecdotes and conclusions. The scholarly backbone of the book is strong, yet the academic studies and statistics are never trotted out for their own sakes, but to contribute to the larger argument of the chapter and the book. These arguments or lessons are often deceptively simple--so simple that we may have overlooked or forgotten them (as in the introduction, about trusting one's hunches if one is an expert in a given area, or that we subconsciously judge people by their appearance, in chapter three)--but the academic studies used to prove the point are the sort of thing regular folks would never bother looking up. Some of the other lessons, however, are quite unexpected: contempt as the most damaging emotion for spouses to use on one another; doctors' tone of voice with patients being a key determining factor in whether they got sued.
All in all, a well-documented, smoothly-written, and tightly-constructed book, whose lessons--from my numerous pages of notes and quotations--I will attempt to apply. The only reason I don't give it five stars is that unlike with the best works of fiction, one thorough reading is probably sufficient.)
A Book To Help Racism Against African Americans November 6, 2009
Grace Defloreis (New York)
I get this underlining impression that "Blink" is designed to help decrease discrimination against black people in America. It seems to be the author's focal point. Since Obama, this ideal is very popular, and Malcolm is coming in at right time. Sure, it get's into "thin slicing theory" but it is heavily armed for negative notions against African Americans from White (Caucasian) people.
But then again, the author Malcolm Gladwell is half Black and half White, so this makes sense.
It's an easy read, not a trivial subject, and racism is a great starting point to get his ideas across!
Peace
"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," a powerful addition to any library November 4, 2009
S. Maxwell (CT USA)
Headed to the library's checkout counter, I intuitively grabbed, "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," on display and added the hardcover book to the top of my pile." I'm glad that I relied on my gut instead of my intellect. Otherwise, I would have left the book behind, feeling that it would bore me with useless psychobabble. This was far from the case. I delved into the 250-plus pages chockfull of psychological studies and theories; the esoteric synthesis of information was just too good to put down. After all, who gets eight hours of sleep these days anyway?
As the title suggests, the book examines the unconscious brain processes, particularly concerning how the brain can make a snap judgment--in the blink of an eye. Through exhaustive research, Malcolm Gladwell illustrates that people, to put it bluntly (but accurately), can be rather stupid some of the time. In essence, many of his case studies prove that, yes, too much knowledge is not necessarily a good thing. He shows that sometimes it is best to surrender the credentials and expertise, and operate under the rule of intuition. On the other hand, he also substantiates, intuition, and things like first impressions, may not steer you on the correct path either. So, go figure. I suppose, as humans, we must accept our imperfections.
Overall, however, the author's case studies, though plentiful, fall in an illogical, random order. Obviously, Gladwell did not have a prior chronological skeleton before he filled the page marrow with prose. If the author had utilized an outline, he did not follow it.
Nonetheless, the studies, whether portraying the petty, biased mind of a person or the plain no-nothingness of a person, are fascinating. Take, for instance, the notion of "sensation transference" which, Gladwell says, was coined by Louis Cheskin, a man born in Ukraine at the turn of the century and a U.S. immigrant child, who later became as Gladwell dubs "one of the greatest figures in twentieth-century marketing." Gladwell cites Cheskin's promotional effort of margarine, which back in the late 1940s, was the unpopular contender on the American table. After Cheskin dyed margarine yellow, wrapped it in foil imprinted with a crown and the name, "Imperial Margarine," consumers ended up raving. Why? Because a pretty package is just that. Who needs to go below the surface? Shallow, but true. Stupidity always is.
Gladwell also draws a picture of autism and cites an example of one of the country's leading experts on autism, a teacher at Yale University's Child Life Center, Ami Klin. Klin tested the eye movement of an autistic adult while he watched the 1966 film version of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" When the scene involved two of the main characters kissing, the autistic man fixated on a light switch in the scene. Klin sums up the premise as follows: "....It's like if you were a Matisse connoisseur, and you look at a lot of pictures, and then you'd go, ahhh, there is the Matisse. So he goes, there is the light switch. He's seeking meaning, organization. He doesn't like confusion. All of us gravitate toward things that mean something to us, and for most of us, that's people. But if people don't anchor meaning for you, then you seek something that does." Interesting stuff!
Despite the book's lack of overall organization, "Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking" packs a powerful punch from beginning to end without losing a blink of an eye's worth of force.
 A Review by Dr. Joseph Suglia October 31, 2009
Dr. Joseph Suglia
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Malcolm Gladwell's BLINK (2005) is not a meticulously researched book. Nearly all of its 'research' was derived from studies in THE JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. In the book's Notes (a mere seven pages in length), you will count fifteen references to that journal and a few references to other sources.
It seems appropriate that Gladwell's research is so slipshod. After all, BLINK is like a war machine pitted against research in all forms. There simply isn't time to investigate and deliberate, after all. And the more you research, the less you will know.
The more you think, the less you will know.
BLINK celebrates and affirms pre-knowledge, the uncritical reflex, the snap judgment, the spur-of-the-moment decision.
Our initial perception of things is always correct, according to Gladwell, unless our minds are led astray by some extraneous matter. And all of us would come to the same conclusions, as long as we refine our "thin-slicing" skills. "To thin-slice," in this context, means to extract the salient meaning from an initial impression. All of us are afforded an immediate and direct insight into the atemporal essences of things.
All of this is 'argued' anecdotally. As I mentioned in the opening of the review, nearly all of the anecdotes were stolen from a single source. And in many cases, misappropriated. Gladwell tells us that students can instantly judge a teacher's effectiveness as soon as s/he walks into the classroom. What Gladwell doesn't tell us is that the article from which he derived this `truth' concerns the impact of a teacher's perceived sex-appeal on course evaluations.
How the 'glimpse' actually works is never explained; we are told, in several places, that instantaneous intuition "bubbles up" unbidden from the recesses of the "adaptive unconscious." "The" adaptive unconscious, mind you, as if there could only be one. This, of course, is monism, and Gladwell believes in absolutes.
This is, of course, mysticism, a blank intuitionism that could easily be put in the service of a fascistic Wille zur Macht.
Of course, one's initial impressions may yield profitable results. But to say that one's immediate intuition of the world is inherently superior to slow and careful thinking is madness.
BLINK's target audience is composed of Hollywood producers, literary agents, advertisers, and military strategists. You will learn in this book that films that exhibit Tom Hanks are superior to those that do not, that margarine tastes better when packaged in foil, that music sounds better when marketed the right way to the right people, that military strikes should be carried out without discipline or forethought. The surface impression is everything. Submit to your impulses!
BLINK is American pop-culture's defense of its own stupidity.
Dr. Joseph Suglia
Showing reviews 6-10 of 1096
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