Sadly, I am finished reading the novel Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I say sadly because this was such an amazing and fascinating book that I am very sorry to be finished with it. The main reason I loved this book was because Gladwell took very advanced and sophisticated ideas and transformed them into something that I could easily understand and relate to. I am aware that some people criticize Gladwell because of that very fact. They say that he over-simplifies scientific work and it is not a good thing. I disagree. Gladwell intended this book for a general audience so that they could understand some complex ideas. If his audience was supposed to be people highly-educated in the science department, then it is a different story, but his simplification was a strong point of this novel.
After reading, I am very tempted to read another one of his books (either The Tipping Point or Outliers) and there is a good chance that I will for one of my free choice novels. Like I said before I started reading this book, I have read The Sports Gene by David Epstein which is a similar genre. However, Blink was a lot better by my standards. The Sports Gene was harder to understand, but that is to be expected. Let me explain, The Sports Gene has a lot more to do with science and complex things like heredity. I have absolutely no background in heredity so that made the book a thousand times more difficult to read. Blink, on the other hand, is about the snap judgments that we make all the time. In a way, it is common sense because we do it constantly. Gladwell does not explore the science aspect of this (thank God), but rather he looks into the social parts of this phenomenon.
I found a Q and A with Gladwell about the novel. Take a look at it: http://gladwell.com/blink/blink-q-and-a-with-malcolm/
The answer that I found most surprising and intriguing was what gave him the idea for Blink. I thought it was crazy, but logical, that the reason he thought of this idea was because he was a victim of thin-slicing gone wrong. It brought me to a new perspective, and made me think about how I personally got thin-sliced. I am still trying to think about examples, but nothing stands out to me. I do know, however, that it happens all the time, but we are not always aware of it.
This is a podcast by NPR with Malcolm Gladwell and Allison Keyes: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4280562
This podcast did not really teach me anything new that he did not go over in his book, but it reinforced the amazing ideas that he discovered and put into a great novel. If you have not read the book, I definitely recommend listening to this podcast, and then reading the book!
I'm glad to see that you had enjoyed Blink. I found the interview with Malcolm Gladwell very interesting. After Blink, I would reccommend Outliers over The Tipping Point, but it's all personal preference. I thought it was a good point you made about how Gladwell takes complex ideas and simplifies them, which is what makes his books appeal to the publilc so much. I thought one thing you could work on would be using specific examples, such as when you say that he oversimplifies things.
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