Talking to Strangers

I think of Malcolm Gladwell as Bill Bryson without the jokes. That’s not intended as an insult. Rather, it’s to observe that they both possess a talent for non-fiction storytelling, one that pulls you into sometimes complicated subjects without leaving you scratching your head and wondering what on earth they’re talking about. (Neil deGrasse Tyson is another.) It's just that Bill Bryson sprinkles his books with humour; Malcolm Gladwell doesn't.

Talking to Strangers is all about misconceptions. It’s about how what we think we see and hear isn’t always what we actually see and hear, and it’s framed by the 2015 case of Sandra Bland, an African American woman who was pulled over by an East Texas police officer for a traffic violation prompted by that same officer, and who later killed herself in prison. MG looks at why the officer did what he did and why Sandra Bland reacted the way she did.

In between these opening and closing chapters, he illustrates his argument with – among others - studies of an episode of Friends, the Amanda Knox arrest and conviction, the Jerry Sandusky scandal, and how it was that Bernie Madoff managed to fool so many people for so very, very long.

It might all sound terribly dense and academic. It isn’t. It might even sound like some trendy self-help book, teaching us to see through the facade to the real person before us. It’s not that either. What it is is an immensely readable and well-argued look at human behaviour that reaches some unexpected conclusions. And it’s packed with fascinating stories.