I have been a fan of Gladwell's books ever since reading the Tipping Point. The stories are interesting, and the conclusions drawn are often enough to give you some pause to think about the larger issue that is being alluded to. For instance, a story about banning the canine breed of pitbull is not so much about the banning of the breed than it is about the illogical conclusions that we draw as human beings that make us want to do things like ban dog breeds.

Gladwell's book is an easy pick-it-up/put-it-down book as well. There are 23 stories in the book, each that read like one of Gladwell's magazine articles (many of them are actually republished magazine articles that he personally enjoyed).

If you're looking for a book that will challenge your assumptions about the way that the world is put together, Gladwell can offer you that fresh perspective in this book.

Yet another brilliant installment by Malcolm Galdwell in his expanding body of work.

For those in the crisis, risk, security professions; some outstanding insights and observation on critical incident planning and the shortfalls of corporate teams. Further, marvelous references to examples and professional reviews of crisis events.

A very compelling read in it's own right but all the more significant for those interested in or specializing in enterprise resilience and the psychology of decision making, or the lack thereof.

I will certainly be making more reference to these and many other examples in the coming months

I had never heard Gladwell's name until I saw him promoting this book on the Colbert Report, and then suddenly he was everywhere. Not being a reader of The New Yorker or his website, all the content was new to me, and all the articles were fascinating. Many of them made me think about things in new ways, or exposed me to background information that I didn't know about familiar topics.

What I felt was lacking was an overall structure to the order of the essays. One would seem to imply that success is a skill, then the next would seem to suggest that it's simply a matter of chance. I finished the book having enjoyed almost all of the vignettes, but unsure about what overlying message I was meant to have taken away from it all.

This book is, in essence, a compilation of essays on unusual as well as every day topics. The style is very much Gladwell - Sharp, contrarian, surgically insightful, and -yet - accessible to many readers. This is not as compelling of a read as his other books (i.e. Blink, Outliers, Tipping Pointetc.), but is worth getting if you are a Gladwell fan, as I have become. This book can be read in a few hours. Yuri Vanetik

While I've read all of Gladwell's earlier works and found them very interesting and entertaining, this collection of already published articles just didn't hold my interest. Part of the reason was the shifting in the subject matter in the various stories, but I think that that the real reason was probably due to the limitations set on him from the magazine, likely both in terms of word count and direction of the articles. With the standalone books, Gladwell would have had more freedom to follow the stories where they lead without worrying about fitting in a magazine article, and not being able to do so with these articles clearly causes this work to be his least inspired to date as a whole.

Malcolm gets you inside the head of ordinary people who you realize are extraordinary. He does his homework and then feeds you such delightful information that you finish reading feeling enlightened, smarter. He's the "George Plimpton" of the non-sports world. And I am so pleased to hear his caring rich voice on audio books instead of the typical canned dry paid readers.

$14.99 just too expensive for download version.
Who is ripping us off?

I read Gladwell's "Blink" and "Outliers" and wasn't particularly impressed. They were good, in my opinion, but not great. I have read a few of his articles in The New Yorker and enjoyed them.

This is a collection of 22 of his articles from The New Yorker.

It is wide-ranging, running from the dominance of one ketchup brand to a unique perspective on the inventor of the birth control pill to the "perils of too much information", plagiarism and criminal profiling.

The writing is crisp and authoritative. Gladwell, in my opinion, handles the short form article much more competently than he did the chapters in "Blink".

This is not a deep book: it's a fun book, illuminating diverse corners of life and knowledge.

Overall, a delight for enjoyable leisure time reading.

Jerry

We have now listened to this collection over several road trips. This is, essentially, an unabridged 430+ page book. However, since it consists of a collection of New Yorker pieces, one can listen to it in (largeish) chunks and then return at any time. Gladwell is fascinated with many things. One is social and cultural history--why do we have, essentially, one brand of catsup and multiple brands of mustard? What is the social/cultural history of hair dye? Another is dry neuroscience--what is the difference between succumbing to fear and 'choking'? He has a talent for scoping out a backstory and elucidating it in interesting ways. Put most simply, he is a journalist with a deep and cultivated curiosity who is also scrupulously fair and without any apparent bias in his retelling of that which he has investigated. He also has a superb and attractive speaking voice. He is not afraid of using salty language when he is quoting someone. His voice instills curiosity in the listener; it does not lull the listener to sleep. Perhaps what is most interesting about Malcolm Gladwell is that he treats his subjects with respect and, like the great novelists, sees the importance of and the excitement in the everyday. His piece here on Ron Popeil is an absolute classic. We have listened to many 'books on tape'; this book on disks is one of the very, very best. Highly recommended.

Malcolm Gladwell's fourth book is a collection of articles he produced for the New Yorker, from 1996 to 2008. One of the other reviewers notes that you can access this archive from the author's website, but in doing that, you'd miss this book's introductory essay and the effect of Gladwell's culling and organizing into the thematic strands: Obsessives/Pioneers/Other Varieties of Minor Genius, Theories/Predictions/Diagnoses, and Personality/Character/Intelligence. In other words, reading article by article off the internet is not as rich or organized an experience as reading the collection in this the book.

The thing I enjoyed about Gladwell's three previous books--The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers--is the way he precisely asks the questions that may lie more vaguely in our own wells of curiosity, about how and why things are and work (or do not). Each article in this book is a mini-version of the way the author comes to a phenomenon in media res, then tracks back to research, interviews and readings on the topic. The full-length books stretch far and wide with the inquiry at hand; the articles hug close to the shore with fewer dimensions. If you are coming to the short works after acquaintance with the other books, you may feel that disconnect of being on a faster than expected elevator ride that is over before you even thought it began. Also, in the case of those articles that track closely to the topics of the previous books, by comparison the articles seem like an artist's sketchbook while the books compare with the completed full-size mural or sculpture.

That said, I really enjoyed What The Dog Saw. Gladwell does a convincing job of analyzing topics that are as diverse as how Cesar Milan is able to tame bad dogs, why the FBI and CIA are at odds with one another, or why the military is not always successful in hitting targets (the same reason why mammography is not a perfect diagnostic tool). Gladwell also organizes his information logically in attractive sentences. Everything he writes has narrative flair without sacrificing truth. Where applicable, he provides updates at the end of articles for which new information has emerged since original publication.

If you liked the first three books, you'll like this one, as well. It is just more classic Gladwell.

I just finished this book on CD version this morning and it was excellent! The title really tells very little of the book since only 2 of the 19 segments relate to dogs. I found it hard to get into Gladwell's other books like Blink, but the vast majority of this book was just very enjoyable and interesting. I am well-educated, but I frequently found myself thinking, "Wow, that is so interesting, I'll have to remember that." If you find yourself bored on a section, skip it because the next one is sure to keep your interest. If you don't read anything else, definitely read the last section on pit bull dogs and profiling. I rarely buy books, but I will definitely be buying this book for my family and friends.

The biggest criticism of this book is that it is a reprint of articles that appeared in the New Yorker. Of course you're going to be less impressed if it is not new material to you, but to most readers it will be.

A great book that has lots of fun stories! An easy book to just pick up and read a quick story. Stories vary on subjects creating a fun mix up of knowledge.

What the Dog Saw is simply an intriguing book. I am always one of those pre-order customers when it comes to Gladwell's books.

This book is a compilation of some articles he wrote, but they somehow fit quite nicely in one cover. I read some of them already, and yet it was (again:) intriguing to read them again.

I won't hold you for long, the other reviewers covered more or less everything I would say myself. Check out the preview section of the book, you'll read a paragraph or two and you would certainly want to spend some time with this book. It's worth the investment.

I love Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Outliers. They're outstanding, compelling works. It speaks to how deeply ingrained those works are in the American consciousness to note how easily people inflect their conversations with the terms 'tipping point' and 'outlier'. I'm party to that and I hear it quite a bit from others. And though Gladwell isn't anyone's idea of a narrator from Central Casting, his quirky, breathless, enthusiastic inhabiting of his own words makes the audio version a better option for the complete Gladwellian experience.

I enjoyed this compilation of his works from The New Yorker, but I'm not going to press it into people's hands like I do Outliers and Tipping Point. I liked some of the pieces, got quickly bored with some of the others. If you don't cotton to the subject of a particular piece, you're in for a tough slog because Gladwell's "delightful side excursions" (to quote one of the professional reviewers here) - while thrilling and exciting on subjects you like - can be akin to Chinese water torture on subjects you don't. So, while I listened intently on the Cezanne/Picasso piece and the Cesar Milan piece (just picking examples from my head), I used the 'next track' button on a couple of others. [I did listen to all but two of pieces in their entirety.]

Fans of Malcolm Gladwell owe to themselves to buy this book. Those new to Gladwell should start with Outliers or Tipping Point.

By comparison, his previous three books are much more insightful and well written than this collection of his New Yorker articles, of which many outstanding ideas had been consummated in those books. On the other hand, I must congratulate Gladwell that he had been improving his writing and story telling skill brilliantly over the years. Pity that I realized so with my finding some chapters in it quite boring indeed. In short, I strongly suggest potential readers to try this in a bookstore before they make a purchase. You may thank me for that.

There are few authors that I know of that create that "have to read" feeling for me but Malcolm Gladwell is one of them and this book did not disappoint. What the Dog Saw is a collection of Gladwell's articles written in The New Yorker where he has been a staff writer since 1996. What amazes me the most about Gladwell is his ability to take the seemingly mundane, pair it with two or three other seemingly mundane topics, and make the story interesting and relevant while touching on topics that impact our daily lives.

One of the articles that caught my attention was written about the inventor of the birth control pill, John Rock. He was a Catholic man who was deeply concerned about the approval of his church and, due to his concern, created the placebo pills that women are still taking today. The significance of the placebo pill was to prove that this was a natural form of contraception and no different than the most popular method being employed by the Catholic Church at the time. (Sadly, John Rock was eventually excommunicated and lost his faith even after he worked so hard and, at times, seemed to have the approval of many within the Vatican.)

By calling the pill natural Rock proves that there are many things science knows, such as how to stop women from ovulating, and then there are things science won't, or can't, understand until after they have had time to see the long term effects of their actions. Something that is said to be "natural" or "safe", such as birth control pills made from progestin cannot not actually be accurately judged until enough time has passed to clearly prove the truth behind the statement. (Progestin actually increases the chances a woman will have breast cancer.) Gladwell also points out that as family sizes have decreased and the number of times women menstruate has increased from about 100 times in their lifetime to 350 or 400 times, that the possibility of cancer from cell reproduction in that process has also increased the chances of ovarian and breast cancer.

This actually leads me to something in my life that has been weighing on me heavily. Science introduced vaccines in 1798 (smallpox) and has steadily increased the number of vaccines available (and required by schools/states in most cases) ever since. Undoubtedly most doctors who administer vaccines as well as those who research and invent vaccines have society's best interest in mind and then the drug gets shoved down our throats via the government and the special interest money they so eagerly accept. My point of this is I have no idea what is "necessary" for my child and what will only harm them. My book for week 3 is a vaccine book that is not anti vaccine but takes a more cautious approach than that of Paul Offit. (see Wired Magazine article: An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All)

I already have a healthy fear of the unknown and uncontrollable, and it really bothers me that the first choice I have to make on behalf of my child may bring harm. Vaccines are not something that you can easily research because much of the research is paid for by people who have an interest in finding data either for or against them. Also, you can't pick and choose single vaccines because they are combined with a number of other vaccines that, no doubt, I won't want to give. I'll move on.

Among the other articles Gladwell touches on the actual value of an interview, why knowing if someone will be a good teacher is the same as knowing if a great college quarterback will be great in the NFL and the difference between what it is to "choke" and panic.

You can find Gladwell's bio and most recent articles here.

What the Dog Saw is not only worthy of a read but also a purchase as are the other 3 he has written. (The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers)

I hope this finds you well.

~jc

This is a book by Malcolm Gladwell.

The book is actually a collection of essays by him that have been in the New Yorker Magazine. Truly an interesting group too - probably something for everyone.

There are around 20 essays in the book. Some of my favorites are the essays on: (1)Ron Popeil aka Mr. Ronco - there is more to those infomercial products and the guys behind them than you might think; (2) the ladies who promoted hair dye - where you learn about the famous line "Does she or doesn't she?" and other interesting items; (3)Enron - actually there are two essays featuring it, and it was even weirder there than you might have thought; (4)Solving homelessness - you might never believe this cost effective method until you hear the whole story; (5)Panic and Choking - the kind involved when you are stressed and don't function correctly, and it really made me think about things I have seen/experienced from a new viewpoint; (6) Hiring and Interviewing - actually two essays and really worth considering.

The title comes from one of the essays that was about a very talented dog trainer. Not one of my favorites, but then I never had an unruly dog.

The author has a very fresh and interesting way of presenting things. Many times he is showing readers (without beating them over the head or putting them on the defensive) how wrong the conventional wisdom about things really is. He has a great writing style and is very persuasive.

Of course, the best thing about the book is probably the selection of topics themselves. This is an art form as done here.

This is a very entertaining book, and I think that most if not all readers will learn something useful from it.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

I've read all of Malcolm Gladwell's books, and this one has all the merits of what he's done previously. The characters are colorful, he presents interesting research, and he asks (and attempts to answer) intriguing questions. The only thing I found confusing about this book is the articles are organized by topic rather than date (the book is articles he's written for the New Yorker). This organization gets confusing at times since what he discusses in the article has changed since the piece was written. For example, the Enron analysis has a postscript to explain developments that happened since he wrote the piece, but that doesn't keep the piece from being a little confusing/outdated as you read it. The publication dates of the articles aren't listed, which makes it frustrating to know where Gladwell is coming from.

another extraordinary book by Malcolm Gladwell - i'd give it 6 stars if i could - obviously, i really recommend it - and, you'd be really doing yourself a disservice if you didnt check out Live Like A Fruit Fly - also on amazon

"What the dog saw" is a collection of different stories that the author has previously written in the New yorker. I have never read the New yorker and so for him to compile all these articles into a book helps those who do not subscribe the New yorker. This book cast a glimpse about how ordinary people uses their talents to benefit society as a whole. The stories in this book forces the reader to cogitate the minuscule things that change the dynamics of our society. I love the author's authenticity to use corroboration evidence to support his ideas. Mr. Gladwell has the aptitude to unpack complexity of ideas to simple ones for even the neophyte to understand. If you are a person who longs for comity in our society, read this book and you will become an active participate in changing this country for the better.

"What the Dog Saw" is a collection of some of Malcolm Gladwell's best articles that have been featured in the New Yorker since 1996. Each one takes you headlong into a world where seemingly every day subjects & some not seemingly every day ones are presented in a way that just make you sit up - and think. As you read about Enron, 9-11, Watergate, World War II & Cold War in the same breath, you are suddenly made aware that there is a difference between a puzzle and mystery. Jana Novotna's Wimbledon loss and John F. Kennedy Jr's death teach you that choking and panicking are not the same. You are asked why more pedestrians are killed crossing the street at marked crosswalks than at unmarked ones, the answer to which leads into a lesson on 'risk homeostasis', that, in turn, helps us better understand the Challenger crash.

Malcolm Gladwell is known to take disparate ideas & weave them into a page-turner. You may not agree with everything he puts across, but you are certain to at least evaluate the merits of his argument. And I guess that is his intent as well. As you flip through the pages, you come across many statements that hold you down by their insight. Sample this:
- If everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.
- A prediction, in a field where prediction is not possible, is no more than a prejudice.
- Another word for generalization is stereotype.
- Genius is popularly tied up with precocity. But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it's just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.
- Power-law problems leave us with an unpleasant choice. We can be true to our principles or we can fix the problem. We cannot do both.

An enjoyable read. While regular readers may find it more convenient to just access his website for all articles (available for free), if you are looking for a select set, "What the Dog Saw" is the right pick.

I haven't read this yet, but plan to in the next day or so, since we're about to get snowed in again this week. I think Gladwell is brilliant.

A great collection from a unique mind- Gladwell has an amazing way of weaving a story. Those in What the Dog Saw are no different.

What the Dog Saw is more like a greatest hits of Gladwell's last 3 books. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with that, this being the premise of the book I felt a little cheated. I read this book while I was in Army AIT training. I was so happy to see that Gladwell had a new book out and being away from home I snapped it up as fast as I could without reading any of the book in the store. I have already read a majority of these stories in his articles and in Outliers, Blink, and the Tipping Point. All great Books. So, if you missed reading any of this last 3 books, pick this one up and you'll be updated on Gladwell's writings. Gladwell is an great observer of human social behavior and he has a knack of telling you his observations and studies. Gladwell is as sharp as a tack and has great wit; I was just hoping for newer material.

What Malcolm Gladwell does, is look at something differently.

This book is a compilation of his stories previously published and there are 3 parts made up of a total of 22 stories. Some have similar themes but all have the author's quintessential, let's look at something and then analyze it. Then look at it again via that analysis. Sometimes, his conclusions are easily followed, other times you are blindsided by his take on the issue. I'm not saying you would disagree, but you might not even think of the solution he presents. Some stories have a single theme and several different angles of the same idea. I thought that was an interesting thing to do.

I have a colleague that does not care for this author's viewpoint. He considers his work pop-pseudo-science, but unless you are basing major life decisions on a single hardcover book, I consider it harmless. His take on a variety of topics, forces you to examine, why things are they way they are. If you don't agree, that's fine. If nothing else, it makes you think.

For instance, his discussion on profiling and considering the accuracy relative to crime solutions. Apparently in some studies it was found that profiles provided were tantamount to what a huckster or fake psychic would use; vague predictions that when fastidiously recorded were inexact science that lead no where. (My words are harsher than his). I don't know it is true, but if I really cared about this, I might look into it.
Similarly in one segment, there was critique on profiling for terrorists and suggested using a less personal characteristic based checklist than an action based checklist. This way, the terrorists would be less likely to figure out the characteristics being used and not be able break the system. I'm not sure any of his suggestions have merit, but they do bear scrutiny.

The only disappointment in the book would be the section on Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer. It was 23 pages long, but given the title of this section formed the title of the book, I was expecting it would have been more of the 410 pages. I think this book should have been named something else if this was only 5% of the content. It was an interesting take on a popular figure, but not enough for a book titled thus. Unless of course the author considers himself the observant dog?

All in all and interesting bit of observations.

Covers a lot of interesting topics, and has a lot to say about modern society--not necessarily by stating opinions and drawing conclusions, but by asking questions. Gladwell gets readers to start asking their own questions and it turns out to be a rewarding experience.

Malcolm Gladwell has a formula: take a bit of common wisdom, something most people accept without question, and pick each assumption apart until you find that that bit of wisdom isn't really supported by facts. Sure, it's a formula -- but it also tends to be pretty entertaining. "What the Dog Saw" is a collection of wisdom-inverting essays written by Gladwell for various magazines spanning a period of about 10 years or so. The range of topics is pleasantly diverse, from questions such as: "are professional FBI profilers any better than parlor psychics at identifying criminals?" to "are pit bulls really more dangerous than other dog breeds?". Gladwell reaches conclusions that you may not always agree with, but he certainly provides you with food for thought, citing plenty of reasonably credible sources along the way. I think of him as the man who paved the way for people like Dubner and Levitt who stretched his formula to near absurdity in "Freakonomics." Gladwell exercises more restraint.

There's always one problem with any collection of essays: the format tends to become monotonous if you insist on reading straight through. I had to put this book down several times and move on to others to relive the repetition, but I found that when I finally did return, the material and style was once again attention-grabbing. Probably a perfect book for airline travel.

GREAT BOOK! Blink, Tipping Point & this book are three of my all time favorites!

Typical Gladwell--takes what you think you know and turns it inside-out so you can see the moving parts you didn't know where there. For those of us who only read his books it's a chance to see his "other" work.

What the Dog Saw is what critics have been calling Gladwell's books for years 'a collection of New Yorker articles' and every authors dream: Becoming famous enough to publish old work in a collection that perhaps wouldn't haven't have made best-sellerdom otherwise.

Not to criticise this book. It is an excellent collection of insightful articles ranging from medical diagnosis to job interview techniques. There is no real correhence to the articles, this book is merely a collection of non-fiction articles, so if you are looking for a central thesis look to Gladwell's earlier works.

The articles of female reproductive health and mammography are actually frightening, and the pieces on criminal profiling, and plagerism are absolute must reads. I recommend reading over several sittings as after a while the articles start to blend, and all have a similar Gladwell style to them (particularly the way he describes individuals).


What the Dog Saw is required reading for anyone who likes to see a little deeper into the world and likes confront issues in original ways. In a piece of homelessness Gladwell brings up an interesting philosophical argument around providing the destitue with resources the rest of us have to work for (effectively saying the priority is either solving the problem, or following an abstract morality of deserving) which I would be interesting in hearing more about from Gladwell.

Can't wait for the next one.

This book is a collection of essays that Gladwell wrote over a period of time in the 'New Yorker' magazine. They deal with subjects ranging from hair color and ketchups to CIA intelligence and JFK Jr's tragic accident.
I have read Gladwell's other books and liked 'Outliers' more than 'Tipping Point' and 'Blink'. The zeal of investigating hidden things in seemingly straight forward phenomena, which was the driving spirit behind 'Outliers', is also evident in many of the essays here. This is what makes Gladwell investigate 'boring' subjects like ketchups and hair color and slicing machines and still come out with interesting stuff to say about them.
I didn't find all the essays interesting. However, the following essays were great to read and made me want to keep reading Gladwell in future:
In the 'Blow Up', he investigates the 1986 Challenger disaster and who is to blame for it. The answer is 'no one'. He says that we have constructed a world in which the potential for high-tech catastrophe is embedded in the fabric of day-to-day life and so we might as well accept without hypocrisy that a NASA spacecraft will go down in flames again.
In the 'Art of Failure', he makes the fascinating distinction between choking and panicking. Choking happens under stress and we revert to the 'expilicit learning' sequence in our actions, For example, Jana Novotna in her famous Wimbledon loss to Graf, choked at the point of victory and started hitting her volleys like a beginner. Choking is loss of instinct. On the other hand, JFK Jr, on that fateful night panicked when he 'lost' the horizon. Panic is loss of instinct and you stop thinking. Under panic, John Jr, instead of reviewing the instruments, got fixated on 'where are the lights of Martha's Vineyard?'. Had he choked instead of panicking, he would have reverted to explicit learning and followed his early learning instructions and it would have saved them all.
In the 'Talent Myth' he investigates and concludes that 'smart people are overrated' and shows it by analyzing McKinsey and Enron. I think this essay is elaborated in 'Outliers' with the theory that 'success is often 10000 hours of practice' rather than innate smartness.
There are other equally brilliant essays on why it is cheaper to 'gift' an apartment to pan handlers instead of leaving them on the street, on whether mammography has any effective use at all and that Enron actually disclosed all their problems to everyone in their reports but that hardly any Wall street analyst read and extracted those crucial data and advised the public, something they are paid heavily to do.
All in all, the book is a good read and Gladwell's admirers won't be disappointed. I am one of them.

Somehow, I've ended up with all of Gladwell's books. That makes me a fan, I guess. He does his legwork & then makes a good story of the facts.

What The Dog Saw arrived in time for a cruise, so I took it along. It's nicely divided into short factual stories, organized as chapters. Each chapter was previously published, so it stands alone.

The mustard/catsup chapter made for an interesting dinner conversation wih our cruise tablemates, as did several other of the chapters. I passed the book along to them.

There are some thought-provoking observations about how teachers are chosen in the US, and then there's that whole mustard/catsup thing, which I'd never thought about.

I watch Cesar Milan's dog training show on the telly. That's what this book's title refers to. That story alone is worth the read.

Cesar's techniques also work on cats. Ours, anyway.

This was a good book, but i found myself struggling to motivate myself to finish. In that sense it seeemd to draw on a little bit for my taste. I also didn't like how old some of the stories were.

This book was a good read but I liked his (Mr. Gladwell) former books a bit better. Still a strong 3.5 on my 5 pt. scale.

During summer 2002, I was taking a long international flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt. This time I realized that I had forgotten to carry some good book to read during the eight hour flight. With just a few minutes left to board, I rushed to the nearest book shop at the airport, and picked up an interesting title with an even more attractive cover picture: "The Tipping Point". This book transformed the eight hours of flying into an exciting and interesting journey, page after page.

I became an instant fan of Malcolm Gladwell. His unique perspective of looking at things very differently, demystifying complexity and the ability to keep us absorbed in a range of topics is exemplary.

His subsequent two books, `Blink" and "Outliers" compete with each other and also the first. If I were to recommend only one book amongst these three to a very good friend, I would go to the book shop and buy all the three and gift them all to him.

When I heard the publication of "What the dog saw", from Amazon.com, I was really excited and wasted no time in grabbing a copy.

Here are my comments:

The first few pages in Preface are inviting, in typical Malcolm Gladwell style. Moving over to Chapter 1, "The Pitchman", I looked at the cover page again to confirm that I am reading the right book. Chapter 2 "The Ketchup Conundrum" doesn't taste very good to me, an Indian citizen, who really does not understand the difference between ketchup and mustard. Given a choice, I would avoid both and be content with freshly made "Chutney" at home. My point is that when a chapter becomes very specific to a particular culture or country, it fails to impress global readers, who may not appreciate the context. I faced the same difficulty in appreciating many more chapters. Each chapter is an essay on a chosen topic and there are many essays that perhaps only a US citizen will appreciate.

Still, Malcolm Gladwell is at his best in many of the essays that I could fully comprehend and appreciate. `Blowing Up" on Nassim Taleb"s ability to see a "Black Swan" and convert that into a huge investment opportunity is one. "Connecting the Dots" on linking up information on Intelligence is another.

I found the "Picture Problem" to be an excellent essay. Mammography, the American failure to neutralize the German capability to manufacture bearings at Schweinfurt in the second world war, and even several decades later the American Air Force's fiasco in eliminating the Iraqi Scud launches in the first gulf war is fascinating - Malcolm Gladwell at top gear. Pictures, it appears, deceive and there is more in reality than what they reveal.

Despite the nuggets of excellence, there seems to be lack of continuity and theme as found in Malcolm Gladwell's earlier three books.

To by best friend, I would still go ahead and gift the first there books from this brilliant author.

I enjoy reading Gladwell books, this 'book,' a series of articles that have already been published, is a good way to continue to read about what he is thinking. This book is a fantastic book if you work in marketing/branding and are trying to sell a product.

He is letting an anti-talent bias creep into his writing, and while Enron certainly did not work with just hiring talent - I still believe talent is essential, but moral character is just as important - I would like to see Gladwell get into some writing on how character plays into talent.

Still, a small critique, loved this book, love his challenging thinking.

This is a collection of essays about the ordinary. Why is is that supermarket contains numerous brands of mustard, in all different styles, while most of the ketchup sold is good old Heinz? Gladwell tells that story, as well as the story behind the Ronco Vego-0-Matic, and many others, in this collection of essays which were originally published as magazine articles. Gladwell's enthusiasm, intelligence and writing style make this book a pleasure to read. The short story format makes this a good book for the bathroom, or for an airplane, or to keep with you whenever you have some free time.

What the Dog Saw will make you smarter, if you're dumb enough to buy it. Malcolm Gladwell's essays are easily readable and he presents his conclusions in a very compelling way. But, they're all available on his Web site. For free. I'm smart enough to figure that out, but I still bought the book. And this paradox is just the kind of thing he'd write about. Go figure.

There seems to have been a bit of a backlash against Malcolm Gladwell during the last year, but this book, a collection of his New Yorker pieces, reminds us why he achieved such prominence to begin with. Gladwell's particular talent is to take a subject which might seem initially to be irredeemably dull and to poke at it from all sides until he locates the particular angle which will allow him to tell a story, simultaneously entertaining and edifying his readers. There's a little more to it than that, of course: in particular, a seemingly unbounded curiosity about why the world is the way it is, and the skill to craft narratives that engage the general reader without being either boring or condescending. One of the factors which contributes greatly to his success is an almost uncanny ability to explain technically complicated material in an accessible manner - he makes this seem so effortless that I think people have begun to take this aspect of his work for granted. I think it's anything but effortless, that it takes hard work every time and he is one of only a handful of writers to pull it off regularly. You may find yourself disagreeing with something that Gladwell is telling you, but you generally won't have too much difficulty figuring it out.

Gladwell groups the essays in this book into three broad categories:

Part 1: Obsessives, pioneers, and other varieties of minor genius
Part 2: Theories, predictions, and diagnoses
Part 3: Personality, character, and intelligence

In the first part, which includes profiles of Ron Popeil (the infomercial king), Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer), Nassim Taleb (contrarian investor and author of "Fooled by Randomness"), as well as chapters on ketchup, hair coloring, and the history of the contraceptive pill, Gladwell sticks closest to his source material, avoiding the kind of premature generalization that is his Achilles heel. He isn't always successful in doing so in the remaining parts so that, while his lucid common sense on the topics of mammography, plagiarism, homelessness, and criminal profiling is a breath of fresh air, his arguments about organizational culture (the Enron debacle, the Challenger explosion) and predictors of individual performance (why some people choke and others panic, are smart people overrated?) are not entirely persuasive.

Nonetheless, this is a fine collection. Gladwell on a bad day still manages to eclipse most other non-fiction writers out there.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell is a collection of essays written by the author and originally published in The New Yorker magazine. Topics range from ketchup to Ron Popeil to failure to Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer (and the inspiration for the title).

I listened to the audio version of this book, and as you would expect, I found some essays to be better than others. The book is read by the author and at first, I didn't think I would like his narration, but I grew to enjoy it, even though his pronunciation of a few words sounded funny to my Southern ears.

I imagine my mother's glad I finished What the Dog Saw because I told her more than she probably wanted to know about a few of the essays. I found "What the Inventor of Birth Control Pills Didn't Know About Women's Health" and "Mammography, Air Power, and and the Limits of Looking" particularly fascinating. I thought the articles were well-researched and thought provoking. When Gladwell made a point, he often used more than one source to back it up. "How Nasim Taleb Turned the Inevitability of Disaster into an Investment Strategy" was over my head and I felt like I might have understood it better if I'd been able to read it, rather than listen to it.

The audio book is on 10 CDs and takes about 13 hours to listen too. With over 20 essays, it's easy to listen to a complete one in a short time. I enjoyed my first experience with Malcolm Gladwell's work and would like to read more of it now.

Malcolm Gladwell is perhaps one of the most imaginative non-fiction writers to come along in a long time. It's hard to be a non-fiction writer and yet have a vivid, well-oiled imagination. But his previous interest in being in the advertising business perhaps would predict such a dichotomy, as it's necessary in advertising.

Gladwell writes in his introduction, "Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. Not the kind you'll find in this book, anyway. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think." That, I think, is the key to the greatness of this book. It is a collection of think pieces.

Gladwell uses a sort of social psychology, which he worked to a fine art during a long stint on The New Yorker magazine, the home of some great writers.

He writes with confidence and optimism, yet with realism. His topics range from the screw-ups of multinational corporations and the quirks of human behavior of businessmen looking for a new guru.

The books cover looks like his other book covers and the book is written in the same style as his other books. This seems to be popular among most modern writers --- something like using a successful template. Actually, it's an old scheme used successfully for decades.

"What the Dog Saw", is a collection of previously published articles. Most sound and read much the same --- using his template.

The book seems to repackage his much-read articles. They are however, perhaps the author's best, his greatest as a musician might put it. He chooses essays that are sophisticated and make the reader think, to try and figure things out for himself. The book proves how successful Gladwell is at finding flaky subjects missed by other writers. To wit . . . the history of women's hair-dye advertisements; the secret of Heinz's unbeatable ketchup. He even writes on the effects of women's changing career patterns on the number of menstrual periods they experience in their lifetimes.

He can dissect a subject, such as the fall of Enron, and actually show the reader how things look through the eyes of someone else --- in this case, a dog.

Gladwell takes an idea, recasts it as a human story, and works it through to the natural ending. He raises provocative arguments and makes the reader think for himself, trying to figure out the truth of the situation.

I like this type of writing because it's at once sophisticated and brilliant but, at the same time, it makes the reader think. It takes the best of a good advertising copywriter and the non-fiction magazine writer and combines them into a powerful method of creative writing.

Highly recommended.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson

This was a Christmas present for a family member and as of 17 Jan 10 I have not received the book. I went to Barnes and Noble (as I should have in the first place) and got her a different gift there. Never again will I trust this seller or Amazon.

This is a fine collection of Malcolm Gladwell's previous articles which appeared in "New Yorker" magazine. They cover things like:

1. Pitchmen, specifically Ron Popeil and the marriage of the message (Vegematic, Rotisserie) and the medium (TV).

2. Ketchup, why there is essentially only one kind of ketchup (hits 5 fundamental tastes together - salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami, the full bodied taste like in chicken soup) and one brand - Heinz (hits an 'amplitude' like Coke and Pepsi).

3. Nassem Taleb of 'Black Swan' fame. Investors don't behave with statistical orderliness - they change their minds. Random, unexpected events can sweep the markets like the Russian government defaulting on its bonds caused LTCM hedge fund to collapse causing panic to spread. So, his strategy is to ignore minor changes in the market and bet on big changes which will come unexpectantly but where really big profit is.

4. Hair Dye - Shirley Polikoff of Clairol's 'Nice n' Easy' with her 'Does she or doesn't she (translated from Yiddish), only her hairdresser knows for sure' and Ilon Specht of L'Oreal's 'I'm worth it' were the first stirrings of the feminism movement. Led to motivational research - like tying curing 'The Blahs' to Alka Seltzer.

5. John Rock's error marketing the birth control pill as preventing conception rather than reducing the risk of cancer - less menstruations, ovulations like in older times because women had less due to more children, breastfeeding, etc.

6. What the dog saw - unlike almost all animals a dog is a student of human movement - they look to you and other dog owners for help rather than judging other dogs. They judge the way a human body moves - forward or backward, face - relaxed or not, leash - tight or not.

7. Enron - was a 'mystery' not a 'puzzle' - requies a lot of analysis not just uncovering some missing pieces of information - it was the way the information could be interpreted. Whereas, 'Watergate' was a puzzle which 'Deep Throat' supplied the missing pieces of information.

8. Picture problem - Desert Storm equipment showed Scuds, but enemy used decoys to look like Scuds. Mammograms - approx 10k xrays only saved 3 lives, human finger more sensitive than expensive technology.

9. Plagiarism - courts too strict, old words in service of new ideas are no problem.

10. Connecting the dots - 1973 Israel war, other countries' mobilizations warned of imminent attck, but this was a common practice, hence not an error by Israel to ignore the mobilizations. A second piece of intelligence was needed - why different this time. 'Constructive Rivalry' needed, like with FDR and the Great Depression to have lots of competing opinions because so many factors caused the mess. FBI (law enforcement focuses on one case) whereas CIA (lots of situations) - need both perspecitives, not that they should always agree.

11. The art of failure - Choke, explicit learning overtakes implicit (like with some tennis players, golfers), whereas Panic is where thinking too little is the cause. JFK, Jr's plane crash was panic because he wasn't trained enough in instrument flying. 'Stereotype threat' like when some Blacks perform worse than should on some tests is a choke, not always a function of less knowledge (implicit) but fear of stereotype (explicit).

12. Blow-up - Challenger, Three Mile Island - complicated events - people did what was expected - 'normal' accidents, not screwups.

13. Late Bloomers, Most lkiely to succeed - value-added analysis necessary - teachers are more important than the schools and test scores, graduate degrees and certifications are not great predictors of teaching talent. Same with NFL quarterbacks - can't judge by college record or even specific tests. Good example are financial advisors - only requirement is college degree - companies know it is important to get as many candidates as possible - the same should be for teacher requirements.

14. Dangerous minds - serial killer can be categorized as organized or disorganized, but really more complicated - it is more likely a mixture.

15. The talent myth - assumes people make organizations successful, but really it is the other way around.

16. The Newboy Network - job interviews are a minefield in evaluating potential talent.

Overall, the book is a fun read with lots of things to think about.

What can I say? Gladwell is one of the most poignant and yet unassumingly controversial writers of our generation. He has this gift of making the most critical issues facing our modern world seem like simple problems that can be examined and proven preventable or at least not as easily encapsulated as we think they might be. He eloquently asks the simple questions that could lead to the complex solutions that our society seeks out so laboriously through theories, generalizations, and unfounded assumptions.

Perhaps the complexities of Gladwell's arguments actually reside in the exquisitely obvious truths that are buried beneath the complex methodologies we think we need to construct in order to feel validated
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Gladwell's works exhibit the same cohesive style of setting the scene and then deconstructing the key characters' thought processes and perspectives before, during, and after the discussed events. Although this may appear to be formulaic the reader never tires of it. Perhaps its Gladwell's unique intellectual curiosity and his ability to pull patterns from seemingly unrelated themes that compel the reader to follow. Either way, this reader remains enthralled and eager to read his next work.

I am usually first in line and first to read Malcolm Gladwell books, this one disappointed me. Though I knew it was a collection of previously published articles I thought it would be as fascinating as his other books. It was not - in fact, it felt like a "publish or perish" type product. It lost my attention after the third chapter.

Spends too long on Ron Popeil in the beginning of the book, which sparked regressed memories of my childhood insomnia summer days when the TV would always pause the video and say, "HOLD IT RON!!! THE NEW X-O-MATIC IS NOW ONLY X easy payments of XX.99!!!!". He described ron popeils contraptions as if he was advertising for them and complimented the guys looks way too much. Ron's head looks like it's composed of 70% mouth. There's at least (current-population-of-the-world minus 1) other people more deserving of a further detailed look into their lives than Ron. How about Norman Borlaug? He wasn't rich or famous. Worse than regressing about him, now I'll always know his last name and family history. Not the kind of person I was ever interested in knowing the most minimal trivia about, up there with boy bands in my sh yte list. I thought he was going to talk about the minor geniuses from the start of the book but he did a lot of random stuff. It does have little truths here and there about things to take into account that are not so obvious in specific but common situations. These make the book more than worth it. If he had connected all the stories into something greater like he did with outliers or tipping point it would have been much better. Instead it's as if it's the type of random interesting facts you'd get if you had to eat lunch with him everyday. The Kennedy crash and discussion about the homeless was really interesting. His book cover is a shoe. I think he winged it and bet his friend/mom it'd still be a best seller, seeing as he's kind of an odd guy.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell is a collection of essays first published in The New Yorker. These vignettes are both entertaining and thought-provoking!

What I love most about Gladwell's writing is his approach to the subject. Gladwell is a gifted writer who is able to turn the ordinary (ketchup) into the extraordinary (an expansive essay as to why there is only one kind of ketchup). He is also able to translate the complex (Wall Street maneuvers) into the comprehensible (so that a layman is able to understand the transactions). In addition, Gladwell convincingly, elevates subjects such as infomercial king Ron Popeil, founder of Ronco and maker of the Showtime Rotisserie, into a "minor genius."

What the Dog Saw is a fun and fascinating celebration of the ordinary world as you've never seen it!


Hachette Audio; Unabridged edition (October 20, 2009)
Advance Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the Publisher.

WHAT THE DOG SAW is another collection of articles astutely written by Malcolm Gladwell, columnist for the New Yorkers and best-selling author of TIPPING POINT, BLINK, and OUTLIERS.

No one juxtaposes events or topics like Gladwell. He takes two apparently-unrelated topics and finds that weird intersection where they collide. He makes sense of the universe in a quirky, unconventional way which is invariably insightful, funny, and thoughtful.

In WHAT THE DOG SAW the reader is treated to a comparison and contrast of bomber pilots and mammograms, the secrets of marketing hair color and postwar America, plagiarism and creativity.

In addition, he is sometimes simply riveting. Writing about Cesar Millan and his gift of understanding dogs, Gladwell is beautiful, artistic and insightful. His essay on Enron did the impossible, brought into doubt the indubitable; the guilt of Enron and its officers. He writes powerfully, painstakingly and impartially about homelessness and the price of public programs.

He thinks critically, writes boldly, and muses wisely. Gladwell is smart. And thoughtful. And so is the reader for simply having read his stuff.

without the cohesion of a singular topic Gladwell's collection comes across as a hodgpodge. a disconnected series of well written, sometimes boring but often interesting collection. in the end it feels like a best of designed to capitalize on previous successes. not even that great a time passer.