MixedNPR... a fascinating, if sometimes meandering journey ... Gladwell is an engaging storyteller ... whittling some situations down to \'failure to communicate\' may be too much simplification in some cases ... here, Gladwell\'s theory is a tough sell. Miller was unconscious, and her assault was much more than simple miscommunication...And reaching back to the Sandra Bland case, can we really disregard racism? Does it really just come down to two strangers who don\'t know how to communicate with each other? ... [Gladwell] bogged down this reader with a detailed dissection of an episode of the 1990s sitcom Friends to make a point about how we rely on people\'s facial expressions when it comes to reading their inner feelings and intentions. Whatever one thinks of Rachel, Chandler and the gang, I\'m not sure to what extent their actions and reactions on set should be used as a guide to actual human behavior ... And what\'s the lesson here? How do we change our credulous behavior, or should we? How can we read people and trust strangers to act right by us? ... It may be good advice generally — Gladwell mostly shows us — and it is all too often ignored throughout history. But some situations are just more complicated than that.
Michael Lewis
PositiveNPRThe thought that Donald Trump may have been totally unprepared to become president in November 2016 is one that\'s not new to those who have been following the day-to-day crises and dramas of the Trump White House closely. But a case for this argument is revealingly and startlingly made by Michael Lewis in his fascinating — and at times harrowing — new book The Fifth Risk ... The Fifth Risk meanders a bit, with a few profiles of earnest government workers that are interesting, but then lead us to another earnest government worker. Still this is a slight criticism. Lewis tells an important and timely story, one that all of us who pay for, care about, and want government to work should hear.
