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5.45k reviews for:
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know
Malcolm Gladwell
3.83 AVERAGE
5.45k reviews for:
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know
Malcolm Gladwell
3.83 AVERAGE
I wanted to enjoy this book but unfortunately, I couldn't. Gladwell used well known examples (Sandra Bland, Amanda Knox, Sylvia Plath etc) to "prove" ambiguous but also obvious points such as, "We think differently when stressed" and "Alchohol affects our judgement".
It felt pretty gross using these tragedies as click bait and blaming the outcomes almost entirely on communication.
It felt pretty gross using these tragedies as click bait and blaming the outcomes almost entirely on communication.
Malcom Gladwell addresses the human tendency to misread and how this impacts us.
I usually enjoy anything by Gladwell but I had trouble with this one. It raises more questions than it answers. The most troubling thing for me, (and I suspect potentially really triggering to others) was the treatment of the Sandra Bland example and the discussion of the Kansas City police training. The incident is one that has really stuck with me, despite Gladwell's assumption that we may need our collective memory jogged. I haven't forgotten. To read even pieces of the transcript between her and the arresting officer was enraging. To see this line later: "The death of Sandra Bland is what happens when a society does not know how to talk to strangers'---was almost equally enraging. It comes across as flip, reductionist. Racism is addressed in a mere footnote. Gladwell attempts to go further with this in the afterword but it feels like a response to something... as if an editor told him that he had to do more to acknowledge the disproportionate amount of police brutality issues, so he drops a few examples but then in the next breath basically defends the officers in one of the prominent cases. It does not sit well with me and I can't imagine how a Black reader would feel.
All in all it feels like a hasty coverage of a complicated subject and does not age well.
I usually enjoy anything by Gladwell but I had trouble with this one. It raises more questions than it answers. The most troubling thing for me, (and I suspect potentially really triggering to others) was the treatment of the Sandra Bland example and the discussion of the Kansas City police training. The incident is one that has really stuck with me, despite Gladwell's assumption that we may need our collective memory jogged. I haven't forgotten. To read even pieces of the transcript between her and the arresting officer was enraging. To see this line later: "The death of Sandra Bland is what happens when a society does not know how to talk to strangers'---was almost equally enraging. It comes across as flip, reductionist. Racism is addressed in a mere footnote. Gladwell attempts to go further with this in the afterword but it feels like a response to something... as if an editor told him that he had to do more to acknowledge the disproportionate amount of police brutality issues, so he drops a few examples but then in the next breath basically defends the officers in one of the prominent cases. It does not sit well with me and I can't imagine how a Black reader would feel.
All in all it feels like a hasty coverage of a complicated subject and does not age well.
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
dark
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Very interesting book, listened to the audio version. Great mix of psychology behind interactions and how we can't always judge ourselves when dealing with others and recent cases to see psycho I ogy and mixed signals in context. Ultimately, without some common agreement of expecting the best from people we are also at a loss.
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced