Glad all over

Any cursory examination of the books I have reviewed will reveal that Malcolm Gladwell was among my favourite authors of my year spent on the 100-book challenge. I read three Gladwell books - Outliers, The Tipping Point and What the Dog Saw - in quick succession and a further (Blink) soon afterwards, and
promptly wished I hadn't because it resulted in a near three-year wait for his next opus.

Thankfully, the wait is almost over with the release of David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, what's been billed as a study of the balance of power between the weak and the strong, and how the small outwit the mighty.

I've been following the pre-release publicity, and it's clear that there has been a backlash to Gladwell's work; complaints that his anecdote-led arguments are too simplistic and that one of the ways he profits, through large scale seminars that regurgitate his work, take advantage of those who hold him up as a modern guru.

Indeed, there is a revealing Guardian interview with Gladwell that addresses those very points here - while an extract from David and Goliath can be read here.

For my part, I have no issue with Gladwell's easy-to-follow style of writing; in fact, I would argue that it's his main strength. As a reader primarily of fiction, particularly in my leisure time, if you'd told me in January 2010 that by the end of the year I would have read four largely sociological studies, and gone so far in the evangelical stakes as to recommend and even buy them for friends, I wouldn't have believed you.

Furthermore, it's prompted me to seek out similar work that I have hugely enjoyed over the past few years, such as Incognito, The Secret Lives of the Brain, by David Eagleman and Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Syed (both of which are highly recommended). So, I can't wait.

#93 The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown)

I've become a bit of a Malcolm Gladwell convert recently, as you'll be able to tell by the fact that The Tipping Point is my third book by the same sociological author in a matter of months. But it's another remarkable book.

The beauty of Gladwell's writing is that he takes everyday familar occurances and applies a microscope to them to reveal their deeper meaning and what they tell us about ourselves and the human race. In lesser hands, the result would be incredibly dry, even boring, but Gladwell chooses his subjects wisely, tells a fine tale and infuses his stories with drama and rich context.

Two days after finishing this book, which nominally explores 'how small things made a big difference', I was telling someone how vervets are amazingly attuned to other vervets, but despite evolution's greatest efforts, still cannot recognise the tracks made by their greatest predators.

As Gladwell writes: "Vervets have been known to waltz into a thicket, ignoring a fresh trail of python tracks, and then act stunned when they actually come across the snake itself." Yet vervets are "incredibly sophisicated when it comes to questions about other vervets. If vervets hear a baby vervet's cry of distress, they will look immediately not in the direction of the baby, but at its mother - they know instantly whose baby it is."

You jump from that to what television programme Sesame Street, a syphilis epidemic and the war on crime in New York, which started with tackling graffiti on the subway, can tell you about how ideas, trends and social behaviours are spread around the world, and how learning lessons from suicide can help combat smoking.

It's truly fascinating, and my only disappointment is that I'm running out of books by Gladwell to read. And vervets.

So, rating time:

#93 The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) - 9/10

Next up: The Heart of the Matter, by Graham Greene (Vintage)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating

#84 What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell (Penguin Books)

Giving it 10/10 probably tells you all you need to know, but further evidence of how much I liked Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers is the fact that I more or less went straight out and bought another of his books, What the Dog Saw.

It's not as good. But that's like comparing Asafa Powell to Usain Bolt. In anyone's terms, when it comes to running very quickly indeed, Powell is outstanding. But he's not Bolt.

Anyway, metaphors aside, it's a fascinating read, as Gladwell turns his attention to finding interesting stories in apparently any mundane subject he puts under his microscope, whether it's the failure of companies to compete with Heinz's Tomato Ketchup to what hair dye advertising did for the empowerment of women, which was my favourite tale, and the dangers of over-analysing decisions with the benefit of hindsight.

So, rating time:

#84 What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell (Penguin Books) - 8/10

Next up: Next up: Magnificent Bastards, by Rich Hall (Abacus)

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#79 Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (Penguin Group)

Utterly brilliant.

If you’re judging the merits of the books I’m reading by the length of the reviews they generate, you’re going to be sorely disappointed in this instance because I could write for hours on the brilliance of Outliers and not do it justice. So I’m not even going to try. Suffice to say, if you haven’t read it, you’re missing out, and despite only finishing it the other day, I’ve managed to bore several people on its subject already.

A sociological study at its heart, prospective readers shouldn’t fear. Malcolm Gladwell is never anything other than a fascinating storyteller and intersperses his points, many of which are extremely provocative, with some entertaining case studies into the lives of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Canadian professional ice hockey players and Korean pilots and much, much more – even his own family.

Gladwell’s objective is to discover which factors contribute to someone’s success, whether reaching the top - and he’s talking about the very top - of a profession, can simply be down to innate talent and hard work, or whether it matters in which month of the year you were born. His investigations and conclusions are often incredible.

From the lessons educational systems can take from rice paddy fields, to the cultural causes of plane crashes, Outliers is gripping, inspirational, thought-provoking and, thanks to a wonderful writing style which regularly makes the complex seem simple, very readable indeed. Go read it.

So, rating time:

#79 Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (Penguin Group) - 10/10

Next up: The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, by Glenn Taylor (Blue Door)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating