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• Current

Type: documentary

Status: finished

Author: diana b. henriques

2007-08-18

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: I recommend

Author: Joe Conason

2007-08-17

  & 25 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: I recommend

Author: Jared Diamond

2007-08-16

  & 2 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: finished

Author: Francis Wheen

Description: Rambling and unfocused. I'd strongly recommend Sam Harris's "The End Of Faith"Rambling and unfocused. I'd strongly recommend Sam Harris's "The End Of Faith" instead of this....

2007-08-04

  & 4 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: I recommend

Author: James McManus

Tags: poker

2007-06-15

  & 75 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: liked

Author: Malcom Gladwell

Description: "The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers,"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.
For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.

Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name....

2007-05-11

  & 63 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: I recommend

Author: Malcom Gladwell

Description: Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant.Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of The Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior. The key is to rely on our "adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7 mental valet--that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea.
Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers can manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us "mind blind," focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to "the Warren Harding Effect" (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president). In a provocative chapter that exposes the "dark side of blink," he illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic stakeout and murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines studies about autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training that enhances high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant, cage-rattling book, one can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell's ideas about what Blink Camp might look like....

2007-05-05

  & 5 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: favorite

Author: Richard Preston

Tags: ebola

Description: An engaging, scary read.

2006-09-27

  & 1 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: favorite

Author: William McNeill

Tags: history

Description: When I first read this it was an eye opener ... a totally new perspective on history and humanWhen I first read this it was an eye opener ... a totally new perspective on history and human development. ...

2006-09-27

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: to read

Author: Seth Mnookin

Tags: baseball redsox

2006-07-28