Talking to Strangers

What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers—and why they often go wrong.

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press

Critic reviews

"Talking to Strangers is a must-read...I love this book... Reading it will actually change not just how you see strangers, but how you look at yourself, the news--the world...Reading this book changed me."—Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine

"Powerful advice on truly getting to know others...Gladwell brilliantly argues that we should stop assuming, realize no one's transparent and understand that behavior is tied to unseen circumstances."—People, Book of the Week

"Gladwell has again delivered a compelling, conversation-starting read...At a time when the world feels intractably polarized, a book examining the varying ways we misinterpret or fail to communicate with one another could not feel more necessary...With a mix of reporting, research and a deft narrative hand, Gladwell illuminates these examples with the page-turning urgency of a paperback thriller."—Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times

"Mr. Gladwell's towering success rests on the moment when the skeptic starts to think that maybe we're wrong about everything and maybe, just maybe, this Gladwell guy is onto something...Talking to Strangers is weightier than his previous titles."—Amy Chozick, New York Times

"Gladwell uses compelling real-world examples to show the how and why behind our interactions with folks we're trying to understand."
—Rhett Power, Forbes

"Gladwell's case studies are thrilling...Chock-full of gripping anecdotes from the recent and forgotten past. He uses these riveting stories to offer up bite-size observations about how we engage with strangers."—Maggie Taft, Booklist

"Another Gladwell tour de force...intellectually stimulating...Readers expecting another everything-you-think-you-know-is-wrong page-turner will not be disappointed."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Both fascinating and topical...A thoughtful treatise...Gladwell writes in his signature colorful, fluid, and accessible prose."—Publishers Weekly

"Gladwell interviews brilliant people, generates powerful insights, writes like an angel, and has earned a massive and admiring audience. He has a keen eye and a witty flair and he's one of the best observationalists of a generation. Gladwell is a big-picture thinker who helps us make sense of the human condition."—Bob Brisco, WebMD Magazine

"As always, with his narrative gift and eye for the telling detail, Gladwell peppers his work with unforgettable facts... He has immense gifts--a probing, original, questioning mind, an ability to dig up information others haven't considered and tie it to a broader point. He has a narrative skill nonpareil."—Stephen Galloway, Hollywood Reporter

Sandra Bland did not commit suicide

That's how I came into this book. I wanted to see how Gladwell came to this conclusion. I came into the story from the wrong angle. Gladwell opened my eyes to critically think about how I interact with people, and what I come away thinking about them. Why some people make me so mad, why I make some people so mad. I'm a mismatched person - even those who are closest to me will say. I'm recommending this book to everyone I know. It's needed now more than ever when many of us feel on the cusp of a shift in - not only the USA - but the world. How do we see each other and how do we get each other so wrong? Our interpretations of our interactions with strangers differ greatly from how they see things. Malcolm answers the why in a way that allows the reader to critically think about their own behavior. It's certainly why emojis and exclamation points are so important in our modern society. But our faces are not emojis. This book was money well spent. I could not put it down and will listen again soon.

Outstanding

I just plowed through this book in a day and a half; I couldn’t stop listening. I have hundreds of audiobooks in my Audible library, and Talking to Strangers is now in my top 5. The book itself is fascinating and extremely well written, and the production is outstanding. I’ve been waiting for this book to release for months, and it was well worth the wait.

Sound Reasons For Thought.

Finishing this book made me want to say something brilliant and insightful for a review. I have attempted for hours and have realized that I am no Malcolm Gladwell. Thank you very much for making me want to try.

Difficult Topic, Covered Well

In Talking to Strangers, Gladwell does what (I believe) he does best. He presents examples that explain interesting findings and occurrences. In this case, many of the occurrences are tragic and some are horrible. I found the introduction to the book off-putting because I wanted to learn some tantalizing and elusive facts from Gladwell as I have in the past. The facts presented in Talking to Strangers are not elusive. While some chapters are tantalizing - such as the studies of transparency - the conclusions drawn are, well, disturbing.

I'm certain there is more to the story. I'm equally certain Gladwell started with an agenda and artfully accomplished his goal of providing evidence he found compelling to support his conclusions. I;m convinced more evidence can and will be presented to attempt to debunk Gladwell's points, some may succeed.

This doesn't make Gladwell wrong.

He presents a point-of-view shared by many. If one gets nothing else from listening to this audio book (do yourself a favor and listen to the audio book), one should glean a respect for "why" some people behave as they do and the limits of our ability to "read" others - especially others we do not know; i.e. strangers.

A must read

I was a little worried about how good this book was going to be when I first started. I thought it was going to be political. It’s was so much better than I could have expect. This book is easily top 3 favorite book of mine