Once in a while you’ll get a recommendation from someone who is so enthusiastic about a book that they use that phrase. If a book makes that kind of impact they want to share it with you. Now, most of you know me as a fiction fanatic. I probably read nonfiction about as often as there’s a total eclipse of the sun. But there are three books by journalist Malcolm Gladwell that I can truthfully say changed something about my way of thinking and looking at the world. These are “Blink,” “The Tipping Point,” and “Outliers.”
Why does one car salesman sell twice as many cars as his co-workers sell? How can a veteran art dealer look at a sculpture or painting and immediately know that it’s a fake? How does a psychologist predict the success or failure of a marriage just by watching a two-minute tape of the spouses’ interaction? The subtitle of “Blink” is “The Power of Thinking without Thinking.” Often our first impressions or instincts can be just as accurate as drawn-out thought processes. To simplify, it’s like saying “listen to your gut.” We are all the sum of our experiences and our subconscious. Gladwell gives the reader several entertaining examples, and these anecdotes will have you thinking “Wow! So that’s why that works!”
“The Tipping Point” shows us instances when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire, triggering a sort of social epidemic. Think of historical happenings like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the “me too” movement, and the recent death of George Floyd. There’s an expression that says something like “nobody can stop an idea whose time has come.” These types of changes are what drives history forward; they spread like a virus. The principle also applies to certain products on the market, why some catch on and have tremendous success while other products never get off the ground. If you think you know why, think again.
“Outliers” shows that how we interpret a situation can be completely wrong because we don’t see the bigger picture. So many factors go into success, for instance. “Outliers” is the book that introduces the concept of 10,000 hours. We’ve all heard of people who are so expert at their jobs or other practices that we say they must have put in their 10,000 hours. To illustrate this point, Gladwell shows us how certain people got to that expert point, giving them a huge head start in their field. I especially liked his chapters on the Beatles and Bill Gates.
Is there a book for you about which you can truly say “it changed my life?” Gladwell has other fascinating books, but it was these three that did it for me. If you read “Blink,” “The Tipping Point,” and “Outliers,” you may start to look at the world from a different perspective, and you may be less likely to accept conventional ideas without careful examination. Happy reading!
Kaye West retired from the Henry County Library System. She enjoys reading, taking daily walks, and spending time with friends. She lives in McDonough with her husband.
