Books : Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

by: Malcolm Gladwell




See Larger Image
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

List Price: $15.99
Your Price: $10.87
You Save: $5.12 (32%)
Prices subject to change.

Average Rating:  out of 5 stars
Sales Rank:







Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.44
EAN: 9780316010665
ISBN: 0316010669
Label: Back Bay Books
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: April 03, 2007
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Release Date: April 03, 2007
Studio: Back Bay Books

















Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours








Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - pretty much goes nowhere
I found this a tremendously interesting read: during two days or so it took me to read it, I really couldn't put it down. (A teacher, I put my students to work doing a bunch of soul-crushing busy work so I could finish reading it during classtime.)

It's full of great anecdotes, and Gladwell has a lucid and engaging style.

The problem is this: as far as what Gladwell's actually saying, his observations don't sum to much.

The basic thesis -- as I'm sure you know -- is that people in certain walks of life are frequently found to exhibit eerily reliable snap judgments, whereby they can arrive at the core of (what seem to us) monstrously complex problems in only a second or two.

Fair enough. The phenomenon certainly exists. Gladwell documents it well and you find yourself convinced that he's not making this up.

Alas. The book attempts to go further than that, and that's where it falls flat.

Gladwell never successfully articulates exactly how it is that his various "thin-slicers" actually work their magic. Further, he fails to give proper weight to the counter-evidence: loads of cases where snap judgments fail. Offhand, I would imagine that judging situations based on one's initial impression is, on average, a dumb way to go most of the time (even perilous in some contexts).

But so enthusiastic is Gladwell about the laundry-list of exceptions he has collected that it's almost to the point where he's implying that preternatural snap judgments are USUALLY reliable, rather than OCCASIONALLY reliable. Which is quite the daring claim.

Finally, Gladwell fails to provide any guidance on the question of how one could systematically learn to hone such a skill, assuming that it can even exist in one's discipline (I remain to be convinced that snap judgments have a role to play in all walks of life).

The end result of these shortcomings is that the only thing "Blink" does effectively is point out that the phenomenon exists. By itself this is not terribly useful.



Rating: 2 out of 5 stars - BLink and you'll fall asleep..
Blink! what seemed like a fascinating subject pulled me in and then after 100 pages I put it down. Just like that, in a flash of a moment or a blink, I decided I can't finish this book. Might have made a fascinating magazine article in New Yorker magazine but like that magazine this book just started boring me. Blink.



Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - Blink and maybe you'll miss this one
The basic idea is interesting and held my attention for a while, but eventually lost my interest.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - blink...and then it's gone
There's not much substance to this book. Rather than being a resource of information, it is merely a book of examples. There is no broad takeaway you can gather from it after reading except to say perhaps that many of our decisions are based on split-second thoughts. But did you really need to read this book to find that out?



Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - Waste of time
This book was, by far, the most redundant thing I have ever read. It would have made for an interesting article in a newspaper or magazine; however, the book itself is way too long and repetitious for its topic. I am very disappointed that I spent money on this item. Too bad my "thin slicing" is apparently terrible and could not help me on this purchase.



Browse for similar items by category:

 < Previous 
 Next > 
page 2 of  20
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20 
 





Silver Sony Dvd Drive | | New Products  Tips
Home Improvement
Hand Tools








Cut your energy bills with these simple steps.

Cut your energy bills with these simple steps.

Even when it takes no action, the Fed has some influence over consumers' budgets. Here's how the Fed's announcement affects both borrowers and savers.

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. -- The "no vacancy" signs outside hotels, sunburned families packing boardwalk amusement rides and thousands of students working in surf shops and souvenir concessions along the avenues suggest that the beach economy is booming this summer.

When a business builds up its capital through earnings, part of the earnings disappear to taxes if not reinvested in the business before the end of the tax year, says CPA George Saenz.

Open House takes a look at cities likely to recover first from the real-estate slowdown, a luxury boom in North Texas and Phoenix neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates.







Shoes

Shopping  Created at Thu Dec 4 18:35:02 2008