Gladwell's "Talking to Strangers" tackles a complex topic with his signature engaging style, but it lacks the same depth of exploration found in works like "Outliers" or "The Tipping Point." It's still an interesting read, but if you're new to Gladwell, those might be better starting points.

After listening to this audiobook, I'm starting to get the hype behind audiobooks! Gladwell narrated his book perfectly; the added soundbites from the historical figures mentioned was a fantastic addition, too.

A very readable book. As always, we get educated on the foibles of human nature. The only thing I’m puzzling over is the curiously abrupt ending.Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review

This book was unputdownable. You like scandalous tales? Are you a news junkie who couldn't step away from sensational trials? This book puts a fascinating spin on them all! Utterly fascinating

As always, Gladwell writes with clarity and grace. His story-telling chops are impeccable, and he makes readers re-evaluate preconceived notions in a thoughtful way. I do always wonder with Gladwell, though, whether he finds a bunch of stories he wants to talk about and post facto links them together with a catchy thesis. This is certainly not rigorous social science.

Malcolm Gladwell has carved out a productive writing career explaining and applying social science research to contemporary problems. His latest opus, Talking to Strangers, continues this approach. His thesis is that we do an abysmal job “reading” strangers, improperly translating their words and intentions, mainly when those strangers are “odd” or do not conform to our expectations about actions and reactions. Experts seemingly do no better than laypersons in this regard. Those actions and reactions, he argues, are far less universal than we might think and are often culturally determined. So I wasted a bunch of time watching two seasons worth of Lie to Me episodes (apparently Dr. Cal Lightman was lying to us). Using this fundamental point, Gladwell marshals a disparate panoply of examples of cases and situations to both illustrate and apply this principle. He includes cheating cases, traffic stops, bail hearings, Montezuma’s initial meeting with Cortes, Neville Chamberlains’ negotiations with Adolph Hitler, Cuban spy rings, the Amanda Knox murder trial, the Jerry Sandusky and Larry Nasser molestation cases, the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, and the Brock Turner sexual assault trial. These examples and Gladwell’s engaging writing style make for fascinating reading.

One of the limitations of the work is that Gladwell may be trying to accomplish too much with too little. He provides an outstanding description and insight on the problems engendered by our failure to properly “read” strangers but offers little insight into the implications and possible solutions. For example, in looking at the Brock Turner sexual assault prosecution (i.e., the Stanford All-American swimmer who was convicted of sexually assaulting a coed after both of them had been drinking heavily at a Kappa Alpha fraternity party), Gladwell builds a persuasive case that this is a situation fraught with opportunities for miscommunication: “How did an apparently harmless encounter on a dance floor end in a crime? We know that our mistaken belief that people are transparent leads to all manner of problems between strangers. It leads us to confuse the innocent with the guilty and the guilty with the innocent. Under the best of circumstances, lack of transparency makes the encounter between a man and a woman at a party a problematic event. So what happens when alcohol is added to the mix?” The obvious answer is that alcohol makes miscommunication much more likely. Gladwell’s weak conclusion is, “so long as we refuse to acknowledge what alcohol does to the interaction between strangers, that evening at Kappa Alpha will be repeated. And again.” In the case, there was evidence that both of the parties were “blackout drunk.” Although legally, alcohol plays a role in both the validity of consent of the victim and the criminal responsibility of the accused, stating the problem does little to help us resolve it. The law cannot and should not invoke a policy that if the victim’s drunkenness causes the victim to send “mixed signals,” s/he “assumes the risk” of what happens after that and is fair game for sexual predators. Equally wrong would be a policy that gave the defendant a “pass” for any actions that s/he committed while under the influence of alcohol. In the Turner case, the judge’s sentence represented a downward deviation from the sentencing guidelines—which led to the judge’s eventual recall, the first in California in 80 years.  Notwithstanding this limitation, Talking to Strangers is a terrific read. Check it out.

Typical Gladwell. You either love his work or hate it, and I love it. He knows how to capture your attention and hold it. A dash of politics, psychology, espionage and a whole lot of flair.

An effort to figure out how to determine the intention of people that are not well known and how poor we are at understanding those intentions. I liked this book a lot, except for the background sounds on the audio.

This book shines on every level: sentence after sentence is beautiful and precise. The characters are complicated and sympathetic, the ideas are sweeping and profound, but are never too overt. It’s a rare novel that is as accomplished in its meaning as it is in its storytelling while also succeeding wildly on the language level as well! A novel to lose yourself in and then reflect upon again and again.

Another excellent work by Malcolm Gladwell. I'll never think about talking to strangers the same way again. SO much potential and information, all in one book!

What I love about this book is that Gladwell makes you look at a perceived truth and then turns it on its head. Some of what he says will make you uncomfortable, but that's a good thing. He shows the parallels between disparate events like Sylvia Plath's suicide, white cops targeting blacks and campus rapes. And he shows why so many world leaders misread Hitler and why torture doesn't work. Most mind blowing of all is that a computer is better able to predict repeat offenders than a judge. Compulsively readable.

I am a die-hard reader. I like to see the words and I often find my mind wandering when listening to Audio Books. However, this book is one of those rare cases, for me anyway, when the audio version is much better than the book. Not only does the author add real audio clips, but the reenactments of transcripts is also very helpful. This is especially true when longer conversations are being relayed between two people with rapid questions and answers.

Now, to the book itself. I was completely moved by this book. I am a very opinionated person and there were many times when during the course of the chapter the author did such a good job of examining each side of an argument that I found myself flip-flopping o my opinion about the subject. The topics he tackles are important and vital to explore. I was so affected by this book that I found myself thinking about it often, even a month after I finished it.

I took away one star from my review (truly, I would give it 4.75 stars) because there were times when the author became a bit heavy handed with expressing his opinion. And, although I think it is absolutely necessary to put some of his opinion in this work, at times there was a bit too much. There is a fine line between adding enough personal thoughts to make this book not read like a textbook and interjecting a bit too much of your own feelings to the text. Once in a while I felt the author pushed just passed that line. This in no way means this is a book you should skip. Grab the audio book version (if you have small kids at home use headphones to listen as some very sensitive topics are discussed) and prepare to dive deep into how and why we judge others and how we can see the world with greater clarity and understanding.

I have seen several negative reviews of this book. I thought that the book was thought provoking. I am pretty fascinated with the psychology so this book was interesting. I have ordered this book for the library.

Another wonderful entry into Gladwell's compendium of works. This book covers a broad range of topics but I really liked all of this examples and how he used them to support his arguments.

I flew through this - it was fascinating. It was more explicit than his other books, thanks to the examples he chose, and I wanted more about HOW to deal with the problem, but it was definitely an engaging and thought-provoking read.

TALKING TO STRANGERS by Malcolm Gladwell is his latest work and explores "What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know." As is his style, Gladwell uses multiple real-life examples to illustrate his points. Here, he refers to the cases of Brock Turner (convicted Stanford rapist), Amanda Knox, Bernie Madoff, Adolf Hitler, and the perils of community policing which led to Sandra Bland's death. Gladwell explores the psychology related to the "Stranger Problem" by describing the work of Tim Levine and his commentary on our tendency to "default to truth," often misunderstanding or "giving the benefit of the doubt," believing the stranger when we should tend to be more skeptical. While entertaining as always, it was sometimes difficult to reconcile Gladwell's analysis with racism, sexism and other unconscious biases which may have as much or more impact on our interactions. In The Washington Post, Wray Herbert remarked upon Gladwell's "impressive range of historical conundrums," but also noted that he "dances around the topic of torture" and provides an "unconvincing and troubling" analysis regarding Sandra Bland. Gladwell has written numerous best-sellers (The Tipping Point, Outliers, Blink) and TALKING TO STRANGERS garnered much attention. Carol Tavris, writing for the Wall Street Journal, described Gladwell as "an enjoyable raconteur, but a somewhat lazy researcher" so that for this particular book, it's "often hard to find the chocolate in the trail mix." TALKING TO STRANGERS did receive a starred review from Kirkus.

You’ve got to hand it to Gladwell. He makes a big splash, and this book is no exception. In Talking to Strangers he proposes that the crux of a number of headline cases boils down to our failure to successfully “read” each other, that we are inherently poor communicators.
One of Gladwell’s key notions is that we “default to truth” or show bias toward the most likely explanation. Such a benign phrase for a concept so devastating. This book should make you paranoid, but it probably won’t. We seem to be hardwired to reset and allow our expectations to color our experiences. I know that MANY will challenge his findings, but they carry weight. And they offer a theory for serious societal ills.
His examples range from fateful encounters between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler to the torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, with many other disastrous experiences in between. Gladwell’s signature style of jumping between stories is polished and effective, especially so when the grim details become overwhelming. There is only so much of Brock Turner, Jerry Sandusky, and their ilk that one can take. They are certainly pertinent to Gladwell’s thesis, but geez.
Indeed, I imagine that people will be frustrated with or angry at Gladwell’s seeming lack of judgement against the parties in some of his case studies (which here are all of the cases except that of the bookended Sandra Bland case). Be serious. This book, as per his usual form, pulls from numerous cases to better understand a singular concept. Many issues and questions arise. And while he (in my opinion) circles back effectively and provides causal links, there will always be those who cry foul. Yet, I’m always a sucker for a big idea, even (or especially) one that really hits close to home. It seems to me that the most protest occurs when a belief is credibly threatened or when a way of life is under scrutiny. That protest should usually be amplified to draw out the suppuration and clear the wound. That’s the only way to heal.

There were parts of Talking to Strangers that I found to be quite eye-opening, but also a few highly problematic issues (in my opinion). Overall, I definitely didn't enjoy this book in the same way I enjoyed Gladwell's other books, though I can see why it was an important one for him to write.

Interacting with strangers is probably one of the toughest things we have to do in society today and there are obviously a lot of things that can go wrong. I love that Gladwell chose to examine this and how we can talk to people in a better, more effective way.

I understand why Gladwell dove into issues in this way, but much of what he said was just cringe-y to me. When he says, "The death of Sandra Bland is what happens when a society does not know how to talk to strangers," I wanted to scream at him, "no! It's what happens when police officers are racist!"I mean, I get it and I agree that it's important to analyze what happened between Sandra Bland and the police officer and how communication could be better, but guess what? Communication will never be better for racist police officers... Even if that racism is implicit. So, how can we just ignore the issues of systemic racism when talking about POC being murdered by police?

Furthermore, sure if Chanel Miller wasn't drinking maybe she wouldn't have been raped by Brock Turner. But guess what? Maybe Brock Turner is just a rapist and if it wasn't Chanel, it would have been someone else. And women should be able to go out and live how they want without a fear of men raping them. Again, I appreciated reading about how these types of cases aren't so cut and dry and how communication changes with alcohol... But I also strongly disliked many of the overall takeaways Gladwell left us with. Similarly, I took some issue with the Jerry Sandusky chapter, which seemed to compare his bosses and co-workers to the parents of the sexually abused gymnasts.

That's not to say I'm sorry I read this book because I do think these are important conversations to have. And there were some sections I found genuinely interesting, like the chapter about Amanda Knox and the transparency of the feelings of the characters on Friends due to their facial expressions.

Overall, it's likely you'll learn a thing or two from this book and it will help you look at the world in a different way... But there's also the strong chance parts of it will rub you the wrong way and leave you questioning Gladwell's overall judgement.

Malcolm Gladwell is wearing thin for me. I stopped reading this one when he intimated that a rape victim was as much to blame as her rapist because she had been drinking. No thanks.

I have mixed feelings after finishing this book. I have always enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's writing and his ability to think outside of the box, but this time he might've pushed it a little too far. The sections of the book not dealing with Sandra Bland, Brock Turner, or Larry Sandusky were incredibly enjoyable. However, each time one of their names came up I was surprised and put off by his take on the circumstances surrounding each of those individuals.