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TechnoTV - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
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List Price: $15.99
Our Price: $4.50
Your Save: $ 11.49 ( 72% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.44
EAN: 9780316010665
ISBN: 0316010669
Label: Back Bay Books
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2007-04-03
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Release Date: 2007-04-03
Studio: Back Bay Books
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great storytelling
Comment: I really love a good story, and the stories in this book were fascinating, especially since you weren't sure where each one was going. So much food for thought-- you may just read it in a few days, but spend weeks thinking about it (or telling your husband about it over and over...). Great!
Customer Rating:
Summary: pretty much goes nowhere
Comment: I found this a tremendously interesting read: during two days or so it took me to read it, I really couldn't put it down. (A teacher, I put my students to work doing a bunch of soul-crushing busy work so I could finish reading it during classtime.)
It's full of great anecdotes, and Gladwell has a lucid and engaging style.
The problem is this: as far as what Gladwell's actually saying, his observations don't sum to much.
The basic thesis -- as I'm sure you know -- is that people in certain walks of life are frequently found to exhibit eerily reliable snap judgments, whereby they can arrive at the core of (what seem to us) monstrously complex problems in only a second or two.
Fair enough. The phenomenon certainly exists. Gladwell documents it well and you find yourself convinced that he's not making this up.
Alas. The book attempts to go further than that, and that's where it falls flat.
Gladwell never successfully articulates exactly how it is that his various "thin-slicers" actually work their magic. Further, he fails to give proper weight to the counter-evidence: loads of cases where snap judgments fail. Offhand, I would imagine that judging situations based on one's initial impression is, on average, a dumb way to go most of the time (even perilous in some contexts).
But so enthusiastic is Gladwell about the laundry-list of exceptions he has collected that it's almost to the point where he's implying that preternatural snap judgments are USUALLY reliable, rather than OCCASIONALLY reliable. Which is quite the daring claim.
Finally, Gladwell fails to provide any guidance on the question of how one could systematically learn to hone such a skill, assuming that it can even exist in one's discipline (I remain to be convinced that snap judgments have a role to play in all walks of life).
The end result of these shortcomings is that the only thing "Blink" does effectively is point out that the phenomenon exists. By itself this is not terribly useful.
Customer Rating:
Summary: BLink and you'll fall asleep..
Comment: Blink! what seemed like a fascinating subject pulled me in and then after 100 pages I put it down. Just like that, in a flash of a moment or a blink, I decided I can't finish this book. Might have made a fascinating magazine article in New Yorker magazine but like that magazine this book just started boring me. Blink.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Blink and maybe you'll miss this one
Comment: The basic idea is interesting and held my attention for a while, but eventually lost my interest.
Customer Rating:
Summary: blink...and then it's gone
Comment: There's not much substance to this book. Rather than being a resource of information, it is merely a book of examples. There is no broad takeaway you can gather from it after reading except to say perhaps that many of our decisions are based on split-second thoughts. But did you really need to read this book to find that out?
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Editorial Reviews:
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In his #1 bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. In BLINK, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others? That's the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in BLINK. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, examining case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the New Coke, Gladwell shows how the difference between good decision making and bad has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but rather with the few particular details on which we focus. BLINK displays all of the brilliance that has made Malcolm Gladwell's journalism so popular and his books such perennial bestsellers as it reveals how all of us can become better decision makers--in our homes, our offices, and in everyday life.
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