Books and
Cooks West
June 2005
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink: The Power of
Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell
Dawn and Jared's place
Sunday, June 12 at 5:30 PM
Veggie lasgana, green salad, fennel salad, bread, cheese, wine,
chocolate pie, Boston Cream Pie
Our rating: 3.5 cups of tea!
From Amazon.com
Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the
decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling
author of The Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and
mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid
storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart
attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars,
and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus
on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior. The key is to rely on our
"adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7 mental valet--that provides us with
instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a
stranger, or react to a new idea.
Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers can
manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us "mind
blind," focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to "the Warren
Harding Effect" (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president). In
a provocative chapter that exposes the "dark side of blink," he
illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic stakeout and
murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines studies about
autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training that enhances
high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant, cage-rattling book, one
can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell's ideas about what Blink
Camp might look like. --Barbara Mackoff
