The highly anticipated new book from Malcolm Gladwell, No.1 international bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw and David and Goliath
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 Strangers is 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.
About the Author
Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine since 1996. In 2005 he was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.
He is the author of the books: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference (2000), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), and Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), all of which were number one New York Times bestsellers.
Industry Reviews
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 *
A dazzling book . . . Gladwell is a rock star of nonfiction . . . Stories are well selected and brilliantly told, ideas are slowly revealed until the reader arrives at a conclusion they didn't expect. Gladwell is advancing ideas and, sure, they are all open to challenge . . . but they are stimulating and convincing - and you won't regret a minute you spend mastering them * The Times *
Superb writing. Masterful... bears all the marks that have made Gladwell one of the most successful non-fiction authors of his generation. -- Pilita Clark * Financial Times *
A wonderful provocation which Gladwell delivers like no other, an awakening to just one of the fascinations that lie in ordinary human experience . . . as ever, Gladwell's genius is in the telling. * Spectator *
Fascinating... you should read the book. Not only will it change the way you see and approach strangers, the precision with which he analyses the incident is one of the most powerful and damning indictments you'll read of race relations in American society. -- Sathnam Sanghera * The Times Magazine *
Taut, provocative, smart . . . Gladwell's cool, playful intelligence has made him one of our leading public thinkers * Ian Leslie *
Malcolm Gladwell made his name bringing intellectual sparkle to everyday subjects, and his new book - about how strangers talk to each other - is no exception. -- Sean O'Hagan * Observer *
Gladwell's new book looks set to cause another stir with its exploration of why ordinary human encounters sometimes end in catastrophes. * Radio Times *
