What the Dog Saw

And Other Adventures

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell

Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

The best-selling author of The Bomber Mafia focuses on "minor geniuses" and idiosyncratic behavior to illuminate the ways all of us organize experience in this "delightful" (Bloomberg News) collection of writings from The New Yorker.

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.

©2009 Malcolm Gladwell (P)2009 Hachette Audio

So so

Interesting articles, but doesn't seem to come together. Some parts of this book were very boring. This pains me to say, because I am a huge fan of Malcolm's Blink, Tipping Point and Outliers

As always

Malcolm Gladwell never disappoints! You will enjoy this group of stories ~ he keeps giving me a different perspective on life!

Great clips!

Having heard his other books, these are a great sample selection of his article work that he has done.

Another eye opening book by Gladwell.

Malcolm Gladwell always give you something to think about. It never really is how it looks that tells the whole story.

Not as Amazing as Outliers and Tipping Point

Outliers and Tipping Point were fascinating to me. I found my mind wandering while listening to What the Dog Saw. Of course the topics that appeal are a matter of personal taste. You might prioritize these three books differently.

Gladwell has a wonderful voice, and he reads his material beautifully.

Who Needs Fiction?

Who needs fiction when real life is so damned interesting? This book tells stories, some decades long in the making, that bring to life the impacts humans and their choices and capabilities have on the course of all kinds of social and scientific history. I actually stopped listening to NPR in the car until I'd finished it...!

I'm in love with Malcolm Gladwell

All of his books are captivating & this one takes the standpoint that not all of our "facts" assumptions or profiling has any basis to reality. Makes you question why you believe what you believe.

Insightful

It was the most informative book that I have listened to. It is full of revelating facts. Gladwell is handsdown my favorite author/historian.

Will change the way you think about thinking.

Loved it. Too often we make analytical mistakes trying to answer questions because we start the analytical process too far into the question (or we ask the wrong question). A close cousin to that problem is not recognizing the atmosphere (our perspective or built in bias) dooms, or at least severely increases the risk of making the wrong decision/reaching the wrong conclusion. The book, in a variety of real life scenarios, examines and explains how that happens. Fascinating.

Information

I had a hard time keeping up with all the stories. My Audible version didn’t have chapter titles so going back to re-listen later was difficult.
So many interesting tidbits!