I ran out of reading material on my trip to China so when I happened by a bookstore in Shanghai, I took a browse to see if I could fulfill my need. I actually found some interesting stuff in the store (such as cheap, legal CDs — cheaper than native ones actually, and MP3 CD-ROMs), but their English section was kind of lacking. They had two shelves of books in English (some being in French).

The English books however were pretty good. They had a lot of books that I already bought and read: Freakonomics, Everything Bad Is Good For You, The World Is Flat; in addition to Harry Potter books. They also had Blink by Malcolm Gladwell which was on my need-to-read list. Also, it was only ¥60 which is like $8.40CDN (soft cover though).

Blink is about an unconscious, but powerful part of our brain that is able to make quick (but not instant) and complex calculations. It is this cognitive ability to quickly decide if someone is truthful or lying, something is real or fake, that lets us make decisions in a “blink” of an eye. Gladwell then proceeds to discuss why we can be fooled by this ability in to making the wrong decisions!

I had expected this book to be interesting and for the most part it was. Gladwell’s distinctive style is also present and makes for a flowing read. I had some problems with the experiements at the beginning of the book but as I read on, they were resolved. I think the key factor is to realize that what he is describing is entirely separate from the logical reasoning part of your conscious, and that your brain is able to choose to use either the logical or impression decision maker when the time is right; which, without reading the book, I would assume is the fallicty of Think!.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: china06, popculture, reading