What’s better, the book or the reviews?

“Blink,” the book I fleetingly mentioned in a post yesterday, is becoming the talk of the week. I myself have not read it and truthfully, I lost interest in it quickly after listening to the interview with Gladwell earlier last week (I know, that is so totally not fair, but there you have it – every time I would have picked up the book I would have had to recall his lackluster responses and the content would slide into the background, overshadowed by the images of a noodle-like persona*).

But I have enjoyed enormously the critical reviews of "Blink," the latest at TNR, by Judge Posner (thanks Althouse), and also a brief comment at JFW (added to yesterday's "thin-slicing " of it by Brooks in the Times and last week's "letter" in Slate found here).

I love controversy about authors (a mean streak is hereby acknowledged?) and after a while, I forget that I myself have no opinion (having not read the book under fire) – I get so wildly caught up in the argument. Sometimes I get so engaged in the back-and-forth that I am ready to sit down and write my own review – all on the basis of the observations of others.

One more critical piece on “Blink” and I think I can begin my own sharp retort. I have the outline in my head already.

* An image that was not with me when I read Galdwell's The Tipping Point some years back -- a book not unlike this one: a half dozen social sciences with a peppering of the natural sciences, all in one short, but fun romp.