a book

Talking to Strangers

Name: Talking to Strangers
Rating: 5 (12 reviews)
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
ISBN: 9780316478526

Malcolm Gladwell · 2019 · 386 pages

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2019
Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong.
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?
While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you'll hear the voices of people he interviewed--scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There's even a theme song - Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout."
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.

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recommended by 12 people

sourced from public statements

Ryan Holiday
“I remember I first read The Tipping Point then I read Blink then Outliers then David and Goliath which is also very good, but then when I read Talking with Strangers last year [...] I remember I shot him an email and I said 'Malcolm this book is like the definition of mastery, it's like watching a master at work'. He took this subject matter that should have been so difficult and frankly not interesting and it's fascinating.”↗
Patrick Bet-David
“"Another book recommendation. Talking to strangers by @Gladwell. He takes you on a roller coaster ride with every single piece of your emotion being put to use. It’s like watching a good movie with your imagination being the director and Malcom the writer. Highly recommend it."”↗
Melinda Gates
“I loved so many of the books I read in 2019. My favorites included “Talking to Strangers” by @Gladwell, “Home Work” by @JulieAndrews, and “Little Fires Everywhere” by @pronounced_ing. What did you read over the holidays?”↗
Fareed Zakaria
“I would say to you, it's a very good formula, and he executes it so well, making this book compulsively readable and insightful. Like all of his work, agree or not, it will make you think.”↗
Elizabeth Warren
“It's a really interesting book about how our perceptions about people, we don't know, for example, when somebody is surprised or when someone is upset, are based on us and not on reality. And he puts together all these different studies from different areas in order to tell stories about what's gone wrong when strangers talk to each other. The story he starts with and the story he ends with is the story of Sandra Bland and what went wrong in the communications between Sandra Bland and the police officer And the whole book is a cautionary tale. I thought it was really interesting.”↗
Matthew Kobach
“@SMDuke I'm a @Gladwell fanboy. I listened to the audiobook version. Was more podcast than book. Loved it.”↗
Adam Grant
Mark Manson
Chris Fralic
Matt D’Avella
The Rational Walk
John Fish