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Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell
beckeal's review against another edition
2.0
I dunno. Maybe my expectations were too high. I haven’t read Gladwell before, but I’ve always been curious. The hype got me anticipating greatness. Instead I found this piece poorly organized, plagued by faulty logic, and ultimately lacking any charm or meaningful significance.
He uses simple words, readable sentence structure, and story-telling to bring complex case studies (with no trigger warnings, eep) and fascinating research findings to his readers. Then he uses the same simplicity to jump to his key conclusions. Neatly side-stepping pesky bits like the other possible conclusions. Kinda irresponsible — especially when he side-steps systemic racism, rape culture, and abuse of power. But I’m guessing his relative accessibility accounts for a good amount of his popularity.
But not with me. I won’t be reading any more of his work. So much for Gladwell. Whomp whomp.
He uses simple words, readable sentence structure, and story-telling to bring complex case studies (with no trigger warnings, eep) and fascinating research findings to his readers. Then he uses the same simplicity to jump to his key conclusions. Neatly side-stepping pesky bits like the other possible conclusions. Kinda irresponsible — especially when he side-steps systemic racism, rape culture, and abuse of power. But I’m guessing his relative accessibility accounts for a good amount of his popularity.
But not with me. I won’t be reading any more of his work. So much for Gladwell. Whomp whomp.
jenmangler's review against another edition
2.0
Many of the stories Gladwell chose to make his point left out a lot of important details, and that makes me very wary about the whole book. And not every story deals with the concept of stranger interaction, so why the title? I just have a lot of issues with this book.
ashleyfleming4's review against another edition
5.0
Extremely bold and challenging points were made in this book backed by evidence and research, something to be expected from Malcolm Gladwell.
There are a lot of great quotes to be pulled from this book and kept on post-its to remind ourselves of the difficulty to even begin understanding strangers. Here are my favorites:
"Today we are now thrown into contact all the time with people whose assumptions, perspectives, and backgrounds are different from our own. The modern world is not two brothers feuding for control of the Ottoman Empire. It is Cortés and Montezuma struggling to understand each other through multiple layers of translators. Talking to Strangers is about why we are so bad at that act of translation."
"...we need to accept that the search to understand a stranger has real limits. We will never know the whole truth. We have to be satisfied with something short of that. The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility."
"If something went awry that day on the street with Sandra Bland, it wasn’t because Brian Encinia didn’t do what he was trained to do. It was the opposite. It was because he did exactly what he was trained to do."
"To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative—to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception—is worse."
There are a lot of great quotes to be pulled from this book and kept on post-its to remind ourselves of the difficulty to even begin understanding strangers. Here are my favorites:
"Today we are now thrown into contact all the time with people whose assumptions, perspectives, and backgrounds are different from our own. The modern world is not two brothers feuding for control of the Ottoman Empire. It is Cortés and Montezuma struggling to understand each other through multiple layers of translators. Talking to Strangers is about why we are so bad at that act of translation."
"...we need to accept that the search to understand a stranger has real limits. We will never know the whole truth. We have to be satisfied with something short of that. The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility."
"If something went awry that day on the street with Sandra Bland, it wasn’t because Brian Encinia didn’t do what he was trained to do. It was the opposite. It was because he did exactly what he was trained to do."
"To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative—to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception—is worse."
kitkat962's review against another edition
3.0
Little substance. I was weary of Malcolm Gladwell's mixed reviews and decide to start with the highest ratings. His lengthy prose are all over the place: he was talking about A, then move to B, then A again, then B and C. It might attract others, but I was not one.
tillwyatt's review against another edition
3.0
6/10
My fifth, and potentially final Gladwell book.
This book was dark. Malcolm knows that the more emotion-evoking a story is, the faster it will sell. That being said, I feel as though this was a rushed novel by him. He is famous for digging up fun historical stories, but for this novel, he decided to focus on modern-day, headline stories(Sandra Bland, Brock Turner, Amanda Knox, etc.). It didn't feel fun, it felt bland.
After five Gladwell books, they all start to sound the same. They get boring.
I love MG, but I prefer to listen to his podcast now. It doesn't sound appealing anymore to commit myself to 350 pages to get one or two good stories.
If you haven't read Gladwell, don't start with this book (Or just read chapter eight. Brilliant and refreshing.)
My fifth, and potentially final Gladwell book.
This book was dark. Malcolm knows that the more emotion-evoking a story is, the faster it will sell. That being said, I feel as though this was a rushed novel by him. He is famous for digging up fun historical stories, but for this novel, he decided to focus on modern-day, headline stories(Sandra Bland, Brock Turner, Amanda Knox, etc.). It didn't feel fun, it felt bland.
After five Gladwell books, they all start to sound the same. They get boring.
I love MG, but I prefer to listen to his podcast now. It doesn't sound appealing anymore to commit myself to 350 pages to get one or two good stories.
If you haven't read Gladwell, don't start with this book (Or just read chapter eight. Brilliant and refreshing.)
lydslikestea's review against another edition
4.0
The audible version is brilliant, like a polished podcast with excerpts of interviews of the case studies and actors reenacting interviews. Subject matter was fascinating and made me think, the audio book flew by and very enjoyable.
liz246810's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.75
evspekkie's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
vurmin's review against another edition
3.0
A lot of the reviews for Talking to Stanger had the same criticisms, and i have the same now.
Gladwell had a lot of research and cases he talked about at length but we never really get a high enough payoff for the time spent with each case to feel it gave any real value. I do think that the book had some interesting insights and research and gave a new angle to viewing people around me but the whole book mostly felt like filer just to get more pages and i believe you can get the same out of it via bullet points or Spark Notes, then getting through the whole book.
I listen to it in audiobook form and i believe Gladwell have gone above the normal amount of effort people put into that format by making it more so a podcast than audiobook, with actors voicing or clips from courtrooms from the cases he talks about, and i would therefore recommend the audiobook version highly, but though maybe not the book itself in its entirety.
Gladwell had a lot of research and cases he talked about at length but we never really get a high enough payoff for the time spent with each case to feel it gave any real value. I do think that the book had some interesting insights and research and gave a new angle to viewing people around me but the whole book mostly felt like filer just to get more pages and i believe you can get the same out of it via bullet points or Spark Notes, then getting through the whole book.
I listen to it in audiobook form and i believe Gladwell have gone above the normal amount of effort people put into that format by making it more so a podcast than audiobook, with actors voicing or clips from courtrooms from the cases he talks about, and i would therefore recommend the audiobook version highly, but though maybe not the book itself in its entirety.
maarroyo22's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
2.75