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|  | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Back Bay Books
List Price: $15.99
Buy Used: $5.90
as of 11/24/2009 13:12 CST details
You Save: $10.09 (63%)
New (99) Used (176) Collectible (1) from $4.75
Seller: gr8lakesbooks1
Rating:  1096 reviews
Sales Rank: 123
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: Used - Good Default Text
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1086-1090 of 1096
 Brilliant Book January 17, 2005
Catherine S. Read (Fairfax, VA USA)
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's remarkable to realize that this book represents the life work of many brilliant researchers, most of whom we would never know except for this book. Malcolm Gladwell has taken decades and volumes of highly technical research and turned it into what will surely be a best seller. He has made these concepts accessible to the average reader and anyone can see almost instantly how it applies to every day situations we all encounter. It's beautifully written, succinct and crafted so as not to intimidate.
I was riveted from start to finish. I have been married and divorced twice now, yet I chose a stray dog at a pet adoption day in less than 5 minutes and was absolutely certain of the decision. My dog is the most wonderful companion one could ask for. This book explains how this can and does happen - even to those of us who consider ourselves educated, reasonable and experienced. I would highly recommend it.
 Great Stories ... no Tipping Point January 17, 2005
Joyce Wycoff (California)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Gladwell is an outstanding writer and storyteller and his new book offers interesting stories and food for thought. However, it falls far short of his blockbuster The Tipping Point.
Blink is about the intuitive response, the pattern recognition that happens almost instantaneously, and allows us to recognize faces and complex, non-verbal communication. Gladwell seldom uses the term intuition, referring to this phenomenon as the adaptive unconscious. He offers a series of fascinating stories focusing on the process he calls "thin-slicing," the process of recognizing and making a decision based on incredibly small amounts of data. One example shows people accurately predicting which married couples will stay together based on only two seconds of videotape.
He offers the premise that decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. However, he acknowledges that this same process can often result in bad decisions and offers little guidance on how to make the process more reliable.
Gladwell does it again January 16, 2005
David Field (Merrimac, MA USA)
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Malcolm Gladwell works in the area where he's trying to know the unknowable (at least at first glance). In "The Tipping Point" he examined how small and apparently inconsequential incidents ensure the success or failure of campaigns to influence the public. In "Blink," he shows how, on the basis of minimal evidence, skilled people can make correct decisions.
Since both these ideas fly in the face of common sense, he has his detractors. However, in "Blink" he has many examples where his theories hold water. Perhaps the most important is the one about military games where one team was given huge amounts of information and proceeded to work from this database. However, the team suffered heavy losses from unexpected attacks, even though they had the means in place to find traces of the the preparations of attacks. In fact, the leader of the opposing team did not behave in the way the "rule book" said he would and thus deluded the other side, even with all their knowledge.
It is one of the things that we pride ourselves on - the ability to make correct decisions using all the evidence - yet sometimes the gut reaction is correct over the best person to hire, and sometimes also the supporting evidence turns out to be false.
Gladwell makes it clear that this method of arriving at decisions is not necessarily true for most people or for most of the time, yet he manages to have numerous examples of, for instance, cops not shooting a suspect who appears to be reaching for a gun. What appears to be a hostile act may or may not be accompanied by other signs that make the cop more likely to believe he's in danger.
The most fascinating chapter in the book for me - "Seven Seconds in the Bronx" - cover a police shooting of a man reaching for his wallet, but interspersed with that is the method used by Paul Ekman, who looks for fleeting facial expressions and can also teach this to others. This would be worth a book on its own, but careful examination of slow-motion film shows people revealing their feelings for a split-second at a time - the signs that experienced people look for.
I think that "Blink" will make you never view the world in the same way again. Read it and see.
You Just Know January 16, 2005
David R. Wakeman (New York, NY United States)
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an incredible concept: the idea that your gut instinct is better than your most thoroughly researched decisions. The idea may have specific business applications, but more importantly, the stories that Mr. Gladwell weaves into to prove his theory make the book very entertaining.
 A Major Disappointment with Unsightly Errors January 15, 2005
Nancy Myers (New York, NY)
13 out of 36 found this review helpful
Well, I rushed out to buy Blink and after the first 20 pages or so, I realized that this book was not worth the money. The Tipping Point was an interesting book, but in this boring and silly volume the author tries to analyze all sorts of topics without the credentials to do so. The reader is left with information that seems upsupported and in some cases outdated. Moreover, the book needs a good editor. Even some of the basics of English have been overlooked. For example, the author mixes a singular object with a plural subject in this sentence, "we need the ability to know our own mind." There are a number of examples of this throughout the book and it made me think that the author and the editor rushed to get this book published. What a disservice to readers and what a shame. You know one would think if the author is so good at examining the mind, he would be as good at catching first-grade grammatical errors.
Showing reviews 1086-1090 of 1096
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