Talking to Strangers

A lot of good material, well presented, but what an unsatisfying ending. I got the feeling that Gladwell has let his (excellent) podcasting skills bleed into his writing: “Setup setup setup. Rhetorical questions? Pithy one-liner–in its own paragraph. Repeat.” It mostly worked, possibly because the book is short, but was grating at times and I think it diminished his impact somewhat.The material, as I said, is very good: on how bad humans are at detecting lies, and he takes that into intriguing directions, zigging and zagging along seeming tangents but it's always clear where he's going – he's developing a case, showing us the building blocks and letting us put them together. It's just that, at the end, it feels like a (sorry) cop-out. He takes on the brutal U.S. police system but basically just ends on a tut-tut note. (Admittedly, this was published in 2019, and the social conversation has taken a new tone since then). I was also disappointed that he doesn't even touch on the links between gullibility and religion. (Then again, that would've hurt sales).Three point something stars. I tried really hard to round up to four, flipping through it over and over, rereading choice parts, skimming gestalt of particular sections, but I can't justify the bump. Please don't let that discourage you from reading it: I still recommend it. It was informative and entertaining and thought-provoking. Just... ultimately unsatisfying.Biggest takeaway: I want to read Timothy Levine's [b:Duped 46168432 Duped Truth-Default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception Timothy R. Levine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560072441l/46168432.SX50.jpg 71125637].