Author: Malcom Gladwell
Genre: Historical Study
Publisher: Little Brown & Comany
Published: September 10, 2019
Book Description: 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.
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: I am going to start by saying that this should be mandatory reading for everyone, especially students, teachers, coaches and public servants. Second, if you are going to read this, please use the Audiobook medium. It is extremely well produced and is well worth the listen.
This book centers around Gladwell breaking down very controversial topics from Fidal Castro, Amanda Knox, Adolf Hitler, Jerry Sandusky, Bernie Madoff, Sandra Bland and many other import impactful stories in the news cycle. He comes at it with the perspective of understanding how we talk to strangers in all these scenarios would have been altered.
At times, I was in tears and had to take breaks. In the Audiobook, he uses real audio from these stories and really makes the point that he is trying to get across so much stronger.
This is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. Malcolm Gladwell is extremely accessible and he makes these stories even more relevant and impactful. I am going to back to his backlist and read whatever he writes going forward.
Obsessed Bookaholic 