A Book Review - Well Sort of ...

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - catchy title isn't it. This book by Malcolm Gladwell was recently recommended to me, and I took my normal course of action when this happens. I went to the iTunes store to see if the book was also in audio format. I love listening to educational/self development types of books while driving. Zig Ziglar would say I am using my car as a university. I don't know about that, but I do accomplish quite a bit of "reading" this way.

I was able to purchase this book in audio format, and I was drawn in immediately. This book's title fits the content well. Gladwell does a great job of keeping your interest by diving into many different scenarios of people being able to think without thinking. There are many fascinating situations, or case studies rather, that Gladwell presents that reveal this potion of our thinking that happens so quickly that we cannot explain it. He presents it as the thinking that happens in the locked portion of our brain. We all have this ability and we all use this ability, but some people are much better at it than others. One case study refers to the famous (at least in counseling circles) Dr. Gottman's abilities to predict marriage success to 90% accuracy by just sitting down with a couple for one hour. Other case studies include police shootouts, determining if a statue is a fake, and analysis of a recent war game.

I enjoyed this book and I would recommend the audio version to anyone else. I would warn you about the format in which I downloaded it. iTunes has this nice habit of not breaking up the book into logical portions. I got seven and a half hours of material to listen to but only 4 tracks. This makes it more difficult to listen to when I am using an ipod one day and my car stereo the next. There is lots of fast forwarding. I digress though because this is not a review of iTunes audio books.

As the book progresses you begin to feel that there is a little more at the heart of it than just this power. I think that Gladwell had an agenda with the writing of this book, and that agenda deals with racism and sexism. The agenda didn't necessarily turn me off, but it did steer me in a different direction causing me to think about how racism is trapped in my own head without me knowing it. It made me think that while I feel that I am not racist, there is a chance that if I let myself lose control I could just as easily spout off some obscenities like Mel Gibson did. I honestly don't think this would happen, but I do feel like there is some racist programming in the locked unknown portion of my head.

Gladwell does a great job of convincing the listener that we all have the power to think without thinking - easily the strength of this book. This power can serve us well, but at times it can also fail us. Typically the power is consistent in either success or failure. While listening to the book I was constantly thinking to myself that I couldn't wait for him to help me develop this power. Unfortunately, this never happens. I burned 7 discs to help me listen in the car, and when I had finished the 5th disc I pretty much figured out that he was never going to openly reveal how to develop this power. Part of this is my own fault, because I had made up my own title for the book thinking it was Blink: Developing Your Ability to Think Without Thinking. This is a hard thought to change when you don't have the book sitting in front of you. The weakness of the book is definitely this lack of a desired formula. In all fairness though, he never promised this and we all want the easy answers. And for anyone thinking about checking this book out consider this: You can still glean from the book how to do this. I was able to search my head for some really solid applications from all the material. The only problem with that was that I had to think about thinking to get it.

Remember those daydreams of making your own comics and joining the greats?

I've never posted any endorsements for books on this blog (nor has anyone else from the Gang), which I think is kind of odd, considering how much we all seem to read. It's actually been a few years since I first picked up The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay when it came out in paperback. Intrigued by a novel about comic books which was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, no less, it seemed inevitable that I'd sprint through to the end of this book in no time. Alas, other distractions of life in the form of work always seemed to prevent me from finishing it, never getting past the first fifty pages. So a couple of weeks ago, having all sorts of free time now, I pulled Michael Chabon's book off my bookshelf for the fifth time and started over from the beginning. In short, this may be one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.

Now that may be an odd statement, considering all my false starts in the past. I've never read any of Chabon's prior writing, but anyone who has will know he's pretty descriptive and knows how to lay down some illustrative words. It's not that his writing is boring--it's that, at times, I felt like a dictionary would have been handy to have around to fully grasp the detailing he was trying to convey. You can certainly gloss through some of his lyrical prose, and get the gist of what's going on, but to do that, you'd also miss a lot of the heart and soul of this book. And at 636 pages, it can take a bit of time to savor it all.

Taking place in the years just preceding the entry of the United States into World War II, the story revolves around two cousins. Sammy Clay is a New Yorker with dreams bigger than himself of becoming a rich and famous comic book artist. With the arrival of his Jewish cousin Josef Kavalier, freshly smuggled out of Nazi-controlled Prague thanks, in part, to his Houdini-like skills of illusion and escape, Sammy's aspirations are realized. Together, they create The Escapist and find themselves in the creative center of the Golden Age of comics, rubbing elbows with the likes of Stan Lee, Gil Kane, and Will Eisner. However, Joe feels guilty about his newly earned fortune, as his family still remains in Europe under the tyrannical control of Nazi Germany, and he struggles to find a balance between his happiness in New York and the pangs of guilt of leaving his family behind in Prague. Sammy, too, has his own inner demons to deal with despite getting all he had aspired to be.

To any comic book reader, past or present, this is a real gem of a book. Chabon certainly must have been one because he seems to accurately capture that dream we all had for that brief stint in our lives of becoming comic book artists by the story of Kavalier and Clay's rise in the industry. The backdrop of this early period of comic books when Superman and Batman were in their infancy also adds a nostalgic twist to our perceptions of comics today.

There's some pretty emotional and heartfelt stuff in here. Along with their own personal struggles, the cousins also find themselves within a somewhat complicated love triangle with the main female character of the book, Rosa Saks. And entwined within this epic story are a broad range of heavy issues from homosexuality to anti-Semitism to censorship to intellectual property rights. The characters, too, are fully realized in vivid detail, and you can't help but feel for them as the events of the book unfold.

I highly recommend giving The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay a chance for your next read (especially to Wander and Firecracker George--I think you guys as aspiring writers would like this book). It's a bit long, but hard to put down, and definitely worth every second you spend with it.