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|  | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Back Bay Books
List Price: $15.99
Buy Used: $5.39
as of 11/25/2009 00:10 CST details
You Save: $10.60 (66%)
New (99) Used (181) Collectible (1) from $5.39
Seller: mckenziebooks
Rating:  1096 reviews
Sales Rank: 136
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: Slight water damage. Cover is creased. Page corners are creased. Some wear to the cover and pages. Ships the next business day, with tracking and delivery confirmation sent to your email.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 16-20 of 1096
 The arguments in this book are so poor that they are funny October 8, 2009
P Wani (Miami, FL USA)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
For a book that has received so much acclaim, I'm surprised by the number of logic holes in Malcolm Gladwell's arguments. He is also very verbose and talks about many random things that are unrelated to the topic of the book. The arguments look like obvious attempts to make money by deceiving the general public. By far, one of the poorest books I've read in a long time.
 A must read October 2, 2009
Jen Schaeffer
An incredibly enlightening book that makes you understand your thoughts and hunches in a new light. Definately a must read
 Blink AND miss it... October 1, 2009
Kerry Levin (California)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I picked up this book because it had reviews written in the jacket stating that "I couldn't put it down" by qualified reviewers. Well, I could and did put it down. I skimmed many pages because of boredom and lack of merit.
If you're interested in this topic in general, find another book about developing your intuitive self, because that's really what "Blink" is about, even though the word intuition doesn't come up...
 Thinking Without Thinking is Good, but Not Always the Best September 27, 2009
Kevin Ung (Atlanta, GA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Malcolm Gladwell understands the concept of writing for the reader; he is able to empathize with the layman while keeping the book informative and interesting.
It is a very interesting book detailing the power of the brain that we never knew existed; he writes mainly about the subconscious actions of our brain and how it effects our conscious actions without our even realizing it.
Gladwell does his best to introduce novel concepts in simple terms so that everyone (even those with no prior exposure to neuroscience or psychology) can understand it without having to go back to re-read sections at a time. Although he writes about a relatively new subject, his colloquial style is unassuming and modest. His master prose and story-telling ability help to relate these new ideas to real-life stories. It is important to say that all ideas proposed in Blink are theories; it is more speculation based on insight and analysis than hard facts.
Blink is about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. More generally, it is a book about intuition and how people harness this power or how it causes situations to go awry. Gladwell uses a variety of real-life examples to push his point, spanning from gambling to speed dating to police situations. The overall theme is that the mind can subconsciously understand a situation before the individual can consciously decode it; the mind can also erroneously conceive the details of a situation due to pre-determined associations made through society. He quickly jumps between stories as he discusses various topics such as thin slices, priming, expertise, selective processing and mind reading. Gladwell's style of writing may leave the reader slightly stranded as the reader attempts to figure out why he tells the stories he does. He leaves the reader curious about the association between concepts and stories until he finally and unexpectedly explains the relationship. Gladwell's great skill has always been to take mostly mundane, unnoticed topics and bringing them to public attention in a way that makes us wonder how we never noticed it before.
Gladwell at times strays from the topic of his own book simply because he wants to tell another interesting story. He stretches to connect some examples of theories to the overall theme of rapid cognition. For example, his analysis of the Coke vs. Pepsi question boils down to the "sip vs. whole-can-drinking." This has nothing to do with rapid cognition but rather of first impressions. To his credit, he explains his ideas of why first impressions are rapid cognition but only relates them to first impressions of people, and not to the senses. Another topic where he strays from the overall theme is over analysis. It seems that instead of trying to prove the power of rapid cognition and thin slicing, he tries to prove that over analyzing in certain situations is more detrimental than good. This notion of proving one idea wrong in order to show that another idea is correct is at best childish.
Gladwell gets his information from many researchers focused expressly on the topics he writes about. While it is clear that the researchers are doing very prominent work, Gladwell instead spends a lot of writing space describing his interactions with the researchers. It almost seems as if he is infatuated more with the person performing the research than the ideas behind the research itself. In some cases (but not all), the background of the research is prudent and helps to clarify why the researcher is individually important to the story.
Blink ends in a very abrupt manner. There is no summarization or recap of ideas as the reader would expect. There isn't even a formal conclusion about rapid congnition at the end. Instead, it seems as if Gladwell just decided he was done writing and stopped. The book would do much better with a formal ending that summarizes the broad range of concepts explored in Blink.
Malcolm Gladwell chooses great topics to explore in Blink and has great enthusiasm in his writing and story telling; however, many of his arguments for the topic are left unfinished and sometimes seems to be mere speculation. I highly recommend reading this book to be introduced to new ideas of subconscious levels of thinking but be cautious. Not everything in the book is fact and further self-driven research can find more information based on scientific research.
Blink, The Power of Quick Thinking September 23, 2009
Jor-el Irizarry Torres (Puerto Rico)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Malcolm Gladwell does a tremendous job of explaining "the power of thinking without thinking." Mr. Gladwell presents the evidence for his thesis like a well prepared trial lawyer would present a case. It it obvious Malcolm investigated thoroughly the concepts presented in the book.Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Showing reviews 16-20 of 1096
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