Guest Blog By Chloe-The Tipping Point

After much nagging, Max convinced me to read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. He did this not because he thought the book was good, but rather because he thought it wasn't and wanted a second (i.e. validating) opinion as the book was met with a great deal of acclaim and popularity.

There was a time when I would have attributed Max's dislike of a book to "uppitiness." This is based on his appreciation of fine literature, his favorite author being Nabokov, and his mild disdain for my trashy mystery novels (however I try to get trashy mystery novels written in french, thus they are really educational and not just trashy). However, this was before our encounter with a book called The Adirondack Detective. We were living in France and after much lamentation and whining about the necessity of care packages, I was sent one from my father and stepmother. With the care package was a book called The Adirondack Detective. A police mystery type book, judging by the blurb on the back jacket. Fun and innocuous I assumed. Well Max got first dibs on the book since he had read all the handy books in English, was desperate for something to read, and had grown tired of struggling through books in french. It was within maybe half an hour that the complaints started. Poor writing, poor grammar, was there even an editor for this, how could this have been published, etc etc etc. I just assumed he was too persnickity and told him something to that effect. Then I tried to read it. I have rather a high tolerance for lackluster writing and really only need the barest thread of a story and enough dead time to get through just about anything. The Adirondack Detective, however, completely defeated me. The writing was not just "poor" but rather schizophrenic/stream of consciousness first person narrative. It was like the rambling of your crazy old grandfather talking about a fishing trip twenty years ago where nothing much happened. I no longer have the book, but I will try and recreate the atmosphere. "I went into Betty's Diner for breakfast like I do Thursday and Sundays. The food is pretty good there and the muffins are chuck(sic) full of blueberries. I like dogs." So after this experience, when Max says a book isn't good with a particular level of vehemence, I tend to believe him...

Max had described "The Tipping Point" and it's apparently novel concept of a point after which things change quickly and dramatically brought about by something seemingly small and inconsequential. My response of " You mean like the straw that broke the camel's back? What's so novel about that?" was met with a withering stare and the demand that I read the book to better agree with his assertion that it was poorly written, not nearly as insightful as the author and popular wisdom claimed, and that the author was a smarmy toad or something to the effect. Not exactly a motivating force for me to read the book, but after much badgering I agreed to read at least part of the book so as to be able to write a review with at least some knowledge of the subject. I almost failed. Now I am a big fan of the illustrative anecdote and case study. However, it was within the first 20 pages that I became convinced that I had somehow lost my place and was re-reading the same section twice. Actually the same point was just re-iterated using the same words 3 pages apart. I asked if reading 20 pages was enough to write a review for the blog, but Max would only agree to at least 100 pages before I was off the hook and allowed to return to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (actually Harry Potter et le prince de sang mele, in french: so educational!). I dutifully read 132 pages, skimmed the rest, and feel that The Tipping Point is not a groundbreaking work; the concepts have all been around for quite awhile. And just to be snarky, the cover art with an unlit match and lit match reminds me of a old commercial for hemorrhoid medication where a guy strikes a match and then puts it out with a "medicated pad" to illustrate the benefits of Tucks. Perhaps an example of "stickiness" in advertising and a potential follow-up case study for any The Tipping Point sequels.