Name: Kyler Phillips's review of Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
Item: Talking to Strangers
Rating: 4
Author: Kyler Phillips

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and #1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and What the Dog Saw, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers---and why they often go wrong. How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland---throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

Talking to Strangers

angie

A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Pres Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong. How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you'll hear the voices of people he interviewed--scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There's even a theme song - Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout." Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.

Stephanie

Kyler Phillips

Mani Mohan

** spoiler alert **
           Excellent writing and great storytelling. But not all the cases he describes fall into the broad, trivialized category of miscommunication. The parts where he analyzes historical events (e.g. Chamberlain vs Hitler, Ana Montez, Aztec empire), were all 'good' because we don't have a deep understanding of the events. But the way the current affairs were dealt, was very so-so. Humans are complex beings with many layers, with varied upbringing, different cultures, and varied philosophies/education, which play a role in a lot of problems (racism, rape culture, etc.). Some cases he discussed are way more complex than just the inability to properly communicate with strangers. Yes, miscommunication plays a role, but the bigger problem is more complicated, and surely can't be trivialized.

Andy Bosselman

This book was designed for audio and the Audible version did not disappoint.

rumbledethumps

This is the first Gladwell book I’ve read. I prefer his podcasts.

Sarah Schumacher

4.5 stars.

This was not at all what I thought it would be. Granted, any new book by Malcolm Gladwell gets added to the library list, regardless of what it’s about, so I didn’t even read the description. 

It is not about how to make better conversation with strangers. It is a thought-provoking look at the kind of assumptions we make about reading people that are so deep we would never think about them if we didn’t read books like these. Mostly. There were some sections that I felt were rather obvious, if not still instructive: Succeeding in public society is partly tied to your ability to present yourself well, whether you can be trusted or not. That’s common sense. But can you tell who is accurately representing their character? Nope. And neither can intelligence agencies, judges or law enforcement. Because they’re strangers. It’s rather depressing to see studies on this and reminds me of some of the research showing that algorithms are better at investing than people.

The biggest takeaway, for me, was the origin of police officers making up ridiculous traffic violations in order to pull people over to look for bigger problems. This is such an obvious tactic that has happened to myself and multiple people in my family. Knowing that it originated as a solution to extreme crime for use in a certain way in a certain part of town and has been extrapolated to the entire nation... wow. A classic example of copycat strategy without understanding why the strategy worked in the first place. And is clearly causing more harm than good. I feel almost like this theme, which seems to be the goal he’s working toward, should almost be a separate book. Not that everything in the middle isn’t interesting, but this topic could stand alone. It feels like he started with his premise and wrote backwards.

Coupling, related to this, was also interesting, which is roughly another way to describe context. When you understand how reductionist Western society is compared to other parts of the world this isn’t surprising.

I enjoyed his chapter on transparency, illustrated by the tv show Friends (which I have never watched), because I absolutely despise sitcoms, and I wonder if this is why. Not only are the plots unrealistic, the expressions are too.

I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell’s books because they’re a mile wide and foot deep. He makes you think in an engaging way, and his books are a quick read. It’s enough to pique your curiosity or inform you of new research. The more in depth books—deep dives into a narrow field of study—are what I prefer to read, so his books give me references to more material (reading about his oversimplification of the “10,000 hours rule” vs. reading Peak, the book by that researcher, for example). Also my expectation of pop nonfiction isn’t super high. This isn’t his best work, but if you enjoy a little history, psychology, science and drama, it’s an enjoyable book and will make you think twice the next time you’re trying to read a stranger.

Jonathan Tysick

Who knew non-fiction could be as addictive as a paperback novel? I listened to the audiobook which was especially engaging, bringing together podcast type elements with Gladwell reading.

Gladwell truly is a master writer, weaving together seemingly unconnected stories to make poignant, helpful and thought provoking points. I especially enjoyed how Gladwell transcends unhelpful polarised rhetoric to make arguments that at times seem "conservative" and other times "liberal." Gladwell is a refreshingly sane voice. Warning: It is pretty graphic (sexual abuse, suicide and torture feature heavily).

Wynter

Look at all these tabs! I had to revisit them all before being able to write a sensible review. There is just so much good stuff that got absorbed by my brain while reading The Inevitable, I had to digest and compartmentalize. 

First of all, I do have to say that Kevin Kelley focuses largely on the positive aspects of every technological advancement, and he addresses that concern very late in the book. I think stating his position earlier would have been helpful to the reader. Otherwise, if you don’t mind dismissing the dystopian connotations, you’ll enjoy the read very much.

The Inevitable logically predicts the near future where a “tendency towards the dematerialized, the decentralized, the simultaneous, the platform enabled, and the cloud will continue unabated.” I support that statement wholeheartedly. But as I see it, that also means that our current economical model needs to sway towards a more social-oriented, rather than individual, spectrum. Currently I can access original text of The Odyssey with relatively ease. If I want to compare a passage as interpreted by several multiple modern translators, just for fun, I have no way of collecting this information instantly without paying separately to each author for a complete body of work, which is impractical on my end. Kelly predicts that eventually we are going to be able to interlink each and every book to follow references and supporting arguments in a network composed of all books ever written - a metabook. But what about copyrights and geographic restrictions? Under current economic model this kind of tech is out of our reach. But if we provide this kind of access, the benefits are innumerable. Education will be more accessible and affordable; individual’s understanding of any subject could become deeper and more accurate; innovation can be accelerated through such collaboration. 

Rather than the end product, the corporations need to start focusing on experiences, which are much more valuable and sustainable long term than any physical object or body of work. In fact it’s already happening. Most of the web content is built by unpaid users like you and me. A lot of software companies are giving away their product for free, rely on user base for betterment of the end result, and profit from supporting user experience by charging for manuals, tutorials, subscriptions, etc. By the way, have you noticed how many companies are switching to subscription-based model? Adobe suite, entertainment providers like Netflix and Amazon Prime, numerous monthly box services, etc.

Why does that happen? Kelly argues that possession will no longer be as important as accessibility. And isn’t that true? I can’t remember the last time I purchased a physical music CD or a movie DVD. I’d rather pay a subscription service that would allow me to access desired media at any time without taking up space in my own home, or on my own device. I choose to rent/buy physical book, only because I enjoy the tactile experience of holding one. Experience prevails where product only becomes devalued. 

There are many other fascinating subjects covered, which I could discuss forever, but I’d rather you read this book for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

The #1 New York Times and top ten Sunday Times bestseller 'I love this book . . . reading it will actually change not just how you see strangers, but how you look at yourself, the news - the world. Reading this book changed me' Oprah Winfrey The highly anticipated new book from Malcolm Gladwell, international bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw and David and Goliath The routine traffic stop that ends in tragedy. The spy who spends years undetected at the highest levels of the Pentagon. The false conviction of Amanda Knox. Why do we so often get other people wrong? Why is it so hard to detect a lie, read a face or judge a stranger's motives? Through a series of encounters and misunderstandings - from history, psychology and infamous legal cases - Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual adventure into the darker side of human nature, where strangers are never simple and misreading them can have disastrous consequences. No one challenges our shared assumptions like Malcolm Gladwell. Here he uses stories of deceit and fatal errors to cast doubt on our strategies for dealing with the unknown, inviting us to rethink our thinking in these troubled times.

What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know

This book explores the history of the human truth-default, it’s benefits and drawbacks, and it’s connection to how interrogation and policing has been practiced irrationally by a scientific standard. The audiobook is packed with audio from pertinent interviews and court documentation, contextualizing in a way that feels rare. Rest in peace Sandra Bland.

haifa

Gladwell argues strangers are not easy, and I agree. The book's thesis wasn't enlightening or surprising, maybe because I am apprehensive even about my acquaintances, let alone strangers.

He has got a very convincing narrative, but quite a terrible approach. He reduces major social issues like sexual assault, racism and other systemic issues into miscommunication and misinterpretation by individuals.

Any writer who use surficial elements in different stories/cases to tie together into a semi-intelligent thesis should be a red flag. I thought the book would be about the average strangers you meet in your every day, but he took it to criminals and racists.

Ali Angco

Malcolm Gladwell does it again. I listened to this as an audiobook after learning that he recorded it in the same style as his podcast, Revisionist History. I will admit, listening to it as an audiobook brought it to 5 stars. Wonderfully written, beautifully recorded.

He examines the our habitual patterns and expectations when talking to strangers - where each style presents their own pitfalls and tragic endings. Default to truth and humility are a few key principles he suggests when talking to strangers. 

I'm confident that when you finish this book, Gladwell won't be a stranger to you at all.

Raven

Loved this audiobook - it’s recorded similar to a podcast where and quote is read by the person who said it, or read by an actor in some cases. Very thoughtful breakdowns of a lot of recent dramatic events where people aren’t who we thought they were or we thought they were very different than they actually were. 

Excellent case studies and lots of great takeaways.

Beau

4.5 stars. Of the non-fiction books I've read in recent memory none of them have challenged the way I perceive fellow humans like this book. Gladwell, after a string of racially fuelled incidents between law and enforcement personnel and civilians roughly between 2014 and 2016, reached his own tipping point and began to wonder how we as individuals approach, judge, and assume the intentions of strangers; folks we know absolutely nothing about. Through a great collection of historical ponderings, psychological inquiry, and modern day stories from the US and abroad, I was taken on a full-blown expedition of how rash thinking can ensnare the humane side of humanity. I felt my own mind, at times, getting defensive at some of the conclusions he was making, which is usually a telltale sign (for me at least) of a long-forged conclusion getting nudged into a new line of thinking. I thank this book for that, and feel compelled to broaden my senses for the better as I live alongside folks I too quickly place in a box.

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

I was more curious to read this book after a lot people rated it low. Gladwell has produced a radical view on "talking" and dealing with strangers. It is clear that humans are poor judge of other humans. And that makes us human after all. This reminds me of my readings on confirmation bias and why we always are wrong about a lot of things, specially our own views. Kudos to Gladwell for shining a light on these issues again--and to our default to truth. Our society needs to bring back trust again.

Ivy X

Enjoyed the perspectives and the intensive focus on how we don’t read ppl as well as we think we do

Didn’t like how it framed instances of rape or police brutality to be rooted heavily in miscommunication. Felt insensitive.

Sierra Nguyen

Not as you may expect, this book does not aim to teach you how to approach and talk to strangers at networking events to expand your network, its aim is to inform you ways in which you could have been wrong when trying to understand people you don't (or even do) know.
In this book, Malcolm Gladwell explores multiple famous scandals (be ready for an interesting read), and from there, he introduces us to the issues of default-to-truth, transparency, and mismatches. Read this book, join the journey, and learn that we are flawed and can always improve.

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers--and why they often go wrong . How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland---throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

Shelby Whitfield

Talking to Strangers is predicated on a tenuous thesis I can't be sure Gladwell himself truly believes. Rather, he's run out of concepts on which to apply his "revisionist" take and has written his reputation into an ideological corner.

The book reads like a college essay needing to be stretched to reach a page requirement, with each supporting argument weaker than the last.

He inexcusably paints Brian Encinia and Brock Turner as victims as he describes the damage done to them by misguided police training and drinking culture, respectively. Reforms in each area are needed, sure, but for Gladwell to separate these men from the responsibility of their actions in order to follow his "hot take" philosophy of selling books is absolutely disgusting.

He argues that the men who supported Jerry Sandusky by failure to report are not criminals, but men who, like all of us, choose to see the best in people. But failure to report is still a crime, and by extension, these men are quite literally criminals.

I've enjoyed previous Gladwell books and podcasts, but this book is too much to forgive.

Cindy Lieberman

A thoughtful and well-reasoned book about our failures to communicate and the dire consequences that can (and have) ensued.

linda

I liked this book. Gladwell focuses on several reasons why we are so bad at talking to strangers.

1. Truth default - we are biased in favor of the most likely interpretation (ex. Madoff).
2. Transparency - we believe that we can easily understand strangers, especially that their facial expressions and mannerisms accurately reflect their emotions and character (ex. Hitler and Chamberlain)
3. Coupling - behaviors are linked to very specific circumstances and conditions (ex. Sylvia Plath, suicide, Gladwell’s dad reading Dickens)

If I could condense this book to one sentence, it would be this: every story is more nuanced than it first appears to be, and rather than having a definitive right or wrong, the conflict often arises from a lapse in communication (between strangers). Overall, I thought the stories were interesting, even if they feel like they are loosely tied together. I also would have enjoyed more science/psychology - a lot of these stories felt oversimplified. I feel like this book lacked a through-line. In the end, the only advice Gladwell offers for talking to strangers is to exercise “restraint and humility.”

Yasser Yahia

A podcast would have been more sufficient for this book IMO!

Todd Luallen

Gladwell is so good at crafting an argument through a variety of sources. I loved this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone remotely interested in human behavior, spies, police tactics, interrogation technique, Amanda Knox, Bernie Madoff, or Penn State Football controversies. 

One of the most interesting discussions surrounds displacement theory and coupling theory. Gladwell clearly showcases that one is widely held by the masses, when in reality, the data shows that the other is actually true. Is it worthwhile to build a net under the Golden Gate bridge to deter suicide jumpers, or will they just find another way of taking their life? Gladwell provides the answer. 

 The book starts off discussing a police traffic stop that went wrong, and I immediately thought this book might be a discussion of the issues surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement. But I was very wrong. The book does not come across as partisan or political in any overt way. But Gladwell does provide plenty of evidence to support his conclusions. At times he will side with the subjects in custody, and at other times he is defending the authorities. More than anything, Gladwell shows the flaws in the way we think, and perhaps provides an avenue to correcting our missteps by highlighting how some have managed to think correctly.

Talking to Strangers is about human interaction and assessment, and the tools that should be used by those that need them the most (police, national security, and the courts).

Margaret McFarlane

The audiobook was very well done. While most of the book was fascinating and very well written, there were a few parts that felt as if Gladwell was trying to write in a vacuum, not acknowledging the broader context, implications, or consequences of certain events and moments. Also sometimes seemed to forget that some of the people he mentions are actual people. Check TWs before reading the book.

In July 2015, a young black woman named Sandra Bland was pulled over for a minor traffic violation in rural Texas. Minutes later she was arrested and jailed. Three days later, she committed suicide in her cell. What went wrong? Talking to Strangersis all about what happens when we encounter people we don't know, why it often goes awry, and what it says about us. How do we make sense of the unfamiliar? Why are we so bad at judging someone, reading a face, or detecting a lie? Why do we so often fail to 'get' other people? Through a series of puzzles, encounters and misunderstandings, from little-known stories to infamous legal cases, Gladwell takes us on a journey through the unexpected. You will read about the spy who spent years undetected at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the man who saw through the fraudster Bernie Madoff, the suicide of the poet Sylvia Plath and the false conviction of Amanda Knox. You will discover that strangers are never simple. No one shows us who we are like Malcolm Gladwell. Here he sets out to understand why we act the way we do, and how we all might know a little more about those we don't.

Raihan Khan

Not in mood to write a review.
But I surely will😕

Ashlyn

I loved the use of source audioclips instead of quotations. Very immersive.

Malcolm Gladwell is a very accomplished writer and Talking to Strangers does not disappoint.  His storytelling clothed in vignettes, is full of anecdotes that provide ample context, historical, and otherwise.

Benjamin Harrison

Mary Rose Luksha

I have read 3 other Gladwell books but this is the first one that didn’t sit entirely right with me. This book tries to shine light on how we deal with/judge strangers and why we are often misled. He highlights Sandra Bland, Brock Turner, Hitler, Jerry Sandusky, and other situations where people/situations weren’t as they seemed. 

But it didn’t sit right with me because he chalks a lot of these scenarios up to “misunderstandings.” Brock Turner “misunderstood” his victims’s consent. The people investigating Jerry Sandusky “misunderstood” his victims behavior. Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler and “misunderstood” his behavior. 

I’m guessing Gladwell was attempting to be “neutral” or “bipartisan” but in 2019 neutrality is just as damning. He never touches upon the fact that any of these “misunderstandings” from Turner, Sandusky, Hitler, could be willful and entirely intentional. Not once. 

The book makes good points. Gladwell is good at the pop psychology/sociology vibe and he understands how to capture the readers attention with what’s going on in our world today. 

But what’s going on in our world today is more than innocent misunderstandings. By simplifying a perpetrator’s actions all we do is open the door for more of them. I don’t think this book sets out to do that, that’s the point of Gladwell remaining neutral. But I’m not interested in neutrality any more.

Kyler Phillips &
Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

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