THOUGH it may seem gratuitous to publish a collection of essays that have already appeared in magazines or journals, in ‘s case it is justified because his writing and storytelling abilities are so good.
The articles in What the Dog Saw are from The New Yorker, where Gladwell is a staff writer, and the style will be familiar to those who have read his previous books: insightful, relentless and mischievous. Whether he’s disassembling the “science” of criminal profiling, exploding the myth that creativity is an artefact of youth, or exposing the conceit of those who claim the 9/11 attacks were predictable from intelligence reports, he has a knack for teasing out the complexities behind the obvious, and the fun in the seemingly mundane. His greatest asset is his curiosity, and there are lessons in his “leave no stone unturned” approach for anyone of a rationalist bent.
Allen Lane/Little, Brown