In my humble opinion, Malcom Gladwell is one of the most gifted writers of our generation. He wrote the bestselling books "The Tipping Point" and "Blink" and is also a writer for The New Yorker.
He has written about everything from the steroid scandal in the MLB to the issue of moral hazard in our healthcare system to ending homelessness in the US. He writes in a style that is unpretentious and straight forward. Lately I have been reading and rereading all of his archived articles and anything else I can find from him online.
I remember reading "The Tipping Point" last year while I should have been reading some obscure academic article for one of my classes. I just felt to frustrated by the way readings in academia were made to be as complicated and abstruse as possible. It was as if the writers felt that the more difficult and convoluted their writing was, the better it would be.
He writes in such an inventive and creative way, always looking for different ways to look at an issue and trying to find out what questions are not being asked. I still haven't figured out what about his writing is so appealing to me, but I am beginning to think that the way he uses a number of different lenses (psychological, sociological, economic, etc...) to figure out what is really at the crux of the social issues that he investigates is what makes him such a powerful and persuasive author. I want more people like him in charge of how our world is run.
I just wanted to clue my 3 loyal readers in to this great writer. I highly recommend checking him out. Also, he has a fresh afro.
2 comments:
i actually think he's pretty overrated, i'm not sure why. i'm thinking about rereading one of his two megahits and formulating good reasons why.
one of the main reasons is that it's all rhethoric--no meat. i guess i read his stuff right after freakonomics, which would be a tough comparison for any writer.
the crux of it is that i disagree with you, more to come on why. stay tuned.
in regards to the "no meat", i guess i am partial to a writer that doesn't fill up his articles with statistics and other figures. i do think that he his writing would be better if he offered some more proof for his conclusions besides just saying "it turns out that the problem is x and not y".
the man tells a good story and the way he crafts his basic narratives is really well done, i feel.
i suggest checking out some of his archived works from the new yorker on his website. there are along the same lines as how his books are written but without the overwhelming task of trying to prove the grandiose theories of blink and the tipping point.
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