What the Dog Saw And Other Adventures

Malcolm Gladwell — 2009

What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century? In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point; Blink; and Outliers. Now, in What the Dog Saw, he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from The New Yorker over the same period. Here is the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling inventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the "dog whisperer" who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and "hindsight bias" and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate. "Good writing," Gladwell says in his preface, "does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head." What the Dog Saw is yet another example of the buoyant spirit and unflagging curiosity that have made Malcolm Gladwell our most brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary.

Reviews

Derek Barlas@derekb

Oct 4, 2023

Excellent, excellent series of essays. Would read anything by Gladwell.

Jeffrey Mack@jeffreymack

Aug 1, 2023

Slightly interesting, though I feel like it was slightly less engaging than Outliers. Towards the end of the book I wanted nothing more than to be just done with it. Sorry Malcolm, maybe I just need to take a break from reading your books.

Liana@liana

May 14, 2022

Gladwell's clarity guides us through complex ideas, even the unsettling ones. His genius lies in dismantling familiar categories, urging us to rethink boxes we never questioned. From dog breeds to Cold War puzzles, he shows how labels crumble under closer inspection. Mysteries shrouded in information overload contrast with puzzles yearning for missing pieces. He doesn't just challenge our thinking, he sparks joy in rediscovering a world with boundaries more fluid than we imagined. And that's why Gladwell's writing never fails to delight.

+10

Freeda Lobo@freedalobo

Jan 28, 2022

Malcolm Gladwell makes me want to believe in the type of journalism I would like to invest in - meeting people, drawing insights, and then building on stories about what actually happened.

Pranav Mutatkar@pranavmutatkar

Dec 30, 2021

3 1/2 Some are classic Gladwell which means overall this essay collection has some really interesting stories and other where Gladwell falls into his regular pitfalls. I prefer his books, but many such as the Ketchup Conundrum were interesting if not light reads.

Magdalene Lim@magdalene

Nov 13, 2021

Gladwell has the knack for making the extremely ordinary into the extraordinary. Love the different glasses readers are given with respect to the topics he covers.

Ben Nathan@benreadssff

Sep 15, 2021

I enjoyed that it was just articles/stories rather than one long narrative. Each was different, but related. Very interesting. His books are the best of the pop science as they do get you thinking but he does state that they are observational studies, not experiments.