Blink

"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," is yet another book recommended to me by my boss, publisher Tom Northrop. It's the second book by Malcolm Gladwell, whose earlier work, "The Tipping Point," explored how little things can create enormous social change.

This book examines unconscious thought and how important it is in making decisions. Gladwell proposes that having an abundance of information may not help in making a decision, say, to go to war, or to accept a job offer, and, in fact, too much information can lead us to bad decisions. Being able to focus on a few key pieces of information and relying on our unconscious mind and our instincts may lead to better choices.

I would love to hire Gladwell as a reporter for this newspaper. He has the ability to take complicated philosophical, psychological and scientific concepts and explain and illustrate them in the clearest and most understandable language.

What I enjoyed most about this book is the incentive it produced to think about the way I think; how I make judgments and how I can avoid prejudice when making decisions.