"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Ok, so I liked it. The only thing that drove me crazy was the fact that Jacob was silent. There were so many times I was screaming at the book “just say something,” or “just explain yourself” and everything will be fixed. He never does. I brought this up so some friends of mine and the simply remind me that that is how most people act (except for the few cases where there life is an open book), including myself.  The fact that I was screaming at a book is a good sign then. I goes to show that I cared for each of the characters; even the villain. I loved to hate him.

The book basically gives a visual of the circus in the mist of the Great Depression. The story talked about how the circus moved from town to town, daily life, how the circus collected acts, brought in money, how they didn’t ( or couldn’t) pay all that worked on the show, and why people stayed when they were on the show. There were also several other dimensions that were added to the book that were interesting, such as: social classes, reasons for entering the circus, and how many hands where “fired”. These other dimensions I am sure that Gruen did not pull out of nowhere but I am sure they were developed and elaborated with Gruen’s story telling ability.

Water for Elephants also examines the protagonist life after the circus. He is ninety, or ninety- three, and is in a nursing home. He is examining his life in the nursing home as the circus is coming into town. He is agitated by his state. He is treated like a child and others are not willing to listen to him; and when a old lawyer that sits across from him begins to retell stories of how he carried the water for elephants Jacobs is outraged by the lies, and still no one will listen. But on the other hand whether Jacob is twenty-three, or ninety-three his silence takes over and he still refuses to explain or discuss his past with those that he does not know.

"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point examines how certain ideas can develop with people and grow within the mass population, just as an viral epidemic would. When Gladwell discusses these ideas he primarily uses fashion, and other trends, to illustrate his point as they are simple visual cues that almost everyone can know and relate to.

He breaks down how this epidemic takes place with 3 elements: the “Connecters”, the “Stickiness Factor”, and the environment.

The Connecters are certain people that know many more people than the average person. I remember learning about these people in a mass media communications class in my first years of college and they referred to these people as nodes.

The “Stickiness Factor” refers to the actual message that is trying to be conveyed. The message the message or idea that needs to reside with people must have some sort of memorable factor, whether it is important, different, new, innovative, ect.

The environment gives credit to other external factors that may contribute to an idea tipping. This seemed to be very ambiguous in the book, because I didn’t quite understand how this was different than just saying “other factors.”

These three things in combination (I think) or separately (quite possibly) can each cause an idea to tip. That’s about it.

I think that this book would have been much more worthwhile to a business student, not me. I think that I learned more from the antidotes themselves than the ideas that he was trying to portray with the stories. For instance, Gladwell goes into a detailed account of the process that Sesame Street went through to get put on the air and to become an engaging and effective educational television show for children. I thought that whole chapter was just fascinating and I think it referred to the portion on stickiness. How? I am not too sure. I am sure I can make something up right now but the clarity of the elements of the show to the stickiness factor and why the show tipped was very ambiguous and left me a bit confused.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book. I would probably recommend Blink before The Tipping Point to anyone who was interested in reading one of Gladwell’s books.

"High School Confidential" by Jeremy Iverson

 

So I begin the book looking for an insight on high school students. I’m expecting Iverson to point out irony or make suggestions about change in the high school world. I don’t really know, but I know I was not expecting this.

When Iverson begins school he said that he is looking for a real high school experience. He wanted a sub-urban school southern California that had averageness about it. The demographics where not completely dominated in any one direction. He found it at Mirador High School. I guess his intention was simply to record what was happening at school, the social clicks, the drugs, any nuances and put it on paper. A real-to-life Breakfast Club, if you will. However, with no statement of change, no premise, and no actual rhyme or reason for being there (other than that he had never had this experience and now he thought he could do it if he has some reason-like to write a book) this really posed a problem for me.

I lived this experience. Really! To the fullest! I mean my high school was a so cal suburban school with a mixed demographic. I mean picture American Pie. I lived that movie. Literally. They filmed the movie on my campus! And guess what? I don’t want to relive high school in a book.

Iverson offered no insight. I know how kids cheat, I know how girls sleep around, I know about the drugs, I get the clicks, I have had the teachers that either don’t care or think they are one of the students, I have experienced budget cuts and I understand that no one would probably truly get along if it wasn’t for the fact that they were trapped together for 8 hours a day. This is not new to me. I wanted Iverson to explain something that I would not know. Offer insight into something that maybe I didn’t get; but alas no. I could have written my high school experience and it would have looked identical. But trust me, even if I wrote my own high school experience down I would not be reading it.

Maybe this book would be more appealing to detached adults that are possibly over 40 (and the only reason that I threw out that number was because rend of mine that are in their mid 30s remember high school the same way that Iverson accounts it). So I know high school has not changed that much within the last 20 years. I don’t really know though…

What do you think? Like it? Hate it? Offered incite? Didn’t offer anything? What? Tell.

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"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

Thesis of Blink:

“The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately…[and the second task of Blink  is to understand] when we should trust our instincts and when we should be weary of them.”(14-15)

 “When we talk about analytic versus intuitive decision making, neither is good or bad. What is bad is if you use either of them in an inappropriate circumstance.” (143-4)

Summary of Blink:

Before reading this Blink was continuously summarized to me as the “explanation on why you should follow your gut,” or “the book about following your instincts.” As I was reading it I naturally and this in the back of my mind with the ideas that Blink was going to be an explanation of intuition or gut instinct. However, the book is not that explanation. Blink is about the first instinct and gut reaction, by Gladwell analyses all possible aspects of this. What is good about a first impression, what can be bad about these impressions. When you can trust your instinct and when you can’t. Also, how your surroundings can inadvertently change your mind in a moresubtlethanbrainwashing kind of way.

Going into Blink with that mindset left me a little confused. There would be times I would be reading and I would understand Gladwell’s argument anymore because I didn’t understand the thesis. After a couple of days of mulling it over to figure out what happened and where I went wrong I found that nothing was missing from the book, it was my preconception of the book that was tripping me up. With everything about the books being said and then the introduction with the Getty and the korus reassured me that this was going to be about how indicts are right. However, that was not the case

Gladwell discusses under what circumstances instincts can trusted or disregarded. He looks at the lives of people in several different fields (experts and nouves) and analysis why they have the intuitions they have and what is shaping their decision making skills.

It can be briefly summarized that experts, when making a decision in their field, can be trusted with an expert opinion on the matter just even after only analyzing the scenario for just a couple of seconds. More time can even act as a variable that can inhibit the expert from making a better decision than he would have made in less time.

People who are not experts develop their immediate reactions on a subject from preconceived notions, stereotypes, priming, and other external factors (such as extraneous physiological conditions)

Opinion:

Overall I liked the book. Gladwell’s writing style was simple and concise (as I could easy see another book on the same subject extending to 500 pages). The stories offered a great illustration of exactly what was happening and what he was trying to pinpoint.

The subject matter that he was dealing with is a subtle process and discusses things that we are seemingly not suppose to understand as this process is kept behind the “locked door,” and the way that he discussed this matter was very intuitive and easy to understand.

The only thing that tripped me up was what everyone else had said it was about. I went into the book completely understanding what was going on and then about 100 pages in I didn’t understand the counter arguments that he was giving to his own thesis. Then I realized that these were not counter arguments. This was all part of his thesis. Which is a good thing; because if his entire argument was going to be that we should always trust our instincts I would have shot myself, there is no way that an argument like that can be true.

Questions:

1.   I didn’t quite understand the relevance of the discussion of the Cook County Hospital. (125-141) I did think that it was an interesting discussion on decision making but I didn’t understand the connection immediate decision making sills. The problems that the doctors were having did not have to do with extended analysis verses immediate analysis. It was over-thinking the situation verses scientific simplification of the scenario. It was a good analysis on over-thinking a situation but I couldn’t quite grasp how exactly the pieces fit together.

2.   Do you think that Gladwell’s analysis was accurate and true?

3.   Personal opinion on Blink. Writing style. Content.