Blinkanomics
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.
Malcolm Gladwell's latest book has been in the house for so long that it was in danger of no longer being his latest book. I exaggerate, perhaps, but I had a real reluctance to open Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Little, Brown; 2005), and the subtitle may tell you why. A book celebrating the power of snap judgments had almost no appeal to me, partly because I think that I'm very bad at making snap decisions. In any case, it was only after reading a book that has traveled in its wake - Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything (William Morrow, 2005), by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner - that I felt inclined to pick it up. The two books make for an interesting contrast.
Both are brainy but not obscure, and both are great reads. Both are studded with interesting, unexpected, and sometimes quite surprising information. Both clarify great swathes of our world (although I suspect that for their readers these areas were fairly clear already; the people who might benefit most from Freakanomics are unlikely to read books at all). But for Freakanomics to be as useful a book as Blink is, it would have to come in several volumes, and be very comprehensive indeed. Maybe it will.
Continue reading about these crazy books at Portico.
