[MPOV] What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures

My rating: 3/5

Goodreads rating: 3.85/5

Published: October 20th, 2009

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Genre: non-fiction, psychology, sociology, social science, economics

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 you'll find the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling creations of 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 why it was that employers in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate. 

I have picked this book based on April challenges for the below:

1. TBNT Book Challenge: A book with an animal on the cover
2. Bookspin / Bookspin Bingo: letters G and M (Malcolm Gladwell)

To be honest, I've come across many rave reviews of this author. Hence my expectation is definitely high for this book. I do agree, it was well written with a straightforward prose, definitely getting the message over with lots of details and examples. The author definitely did his homework thoroughly which is why he could explain it quite accurately. However the habitual paraphrasing the story with elaborated examples is a little over daunting for me which in turn kinda bored me a little especially when it isn't my cup of tea. I guess reading it as a short story on a weekly basis differed to reading it in a book where all the short stories are. His style of writing is very prominent as such.

Anyway, there are a few which I've enjoyed, in fact eye opening for me like:

1. True Colors
2. John Rock's Error
3. What the Dog Saw
4. The Picture Problem
5. Something Borrowed
6. Late Bloomers
7. Dangerous Minds
8. Troublemakers

These stories resonate with me and I could relate to it or have interest in it. The others were more business like with more conundrums that is more for the serious minded LOL! Anyway, if you like varieties then this book is definitely for you. It is actually a great mind boggling filled with facts kinda read!

Here are some interesting facts, there were more but I've reduced it to this 4:

There are five known fundamental tastes in the human palate:

Salty, sweet sour butter and umami

When a woman is on the Pill, however, no egg is released, because the Pill suppresses ovulation. The fluxes of estrogen and progestin that cause the lining of the uterus to grow are dramatically reduced, because the Pill slows down the ovaries.

The problem of interval tumors explains why the overwhelming majority of breast-cancer experts insist that women in the critical 50 - 69 age group get regular mammograms.

Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little.