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kimkamienski 's review for:
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know
by Malcolm Gladwell
I’m pretty surprised this book is as popular and well rated as it is. I enjoyed parts of this book, namely the historical background of world leaders’ relationships with Hitler and the Cuban CIA double agent, which shed light on pieces of history I was not previously aware of. However, the majority of the book was pretty painful to read and felt like a defense of some reprehensible acts done by some pretty reprehensible people e.g. Larry Nassar, Brock Turner, Brian Encinia, Jerry Sandusky. I thought at first that maybe i was missing the point, but the more I thought about it the more I decided that Gladwell used really awful examples in trying to get his point across. Why use convicted murderers and rapists to illustrate to the readers that people
have a natural inclination as human beings to assume people tell the truth? Most of his examples seemed like such a stretch to me and I just could not get past it enough to feel this was a valuable read.
have a natural inclination as human beings to assume people tell the truth? Most of his examples seemed like such a stretch to me and I just could not get past it enough to feel this was a valuable read.