Review: Blink

Blink takes an interesting idea -- that the unconscious mind is both lightening fast and surprisingly efficient at making particular kinds of judgments -- and expounds upon it using numerous decently well-known examples from recent history. The unconscious cognition idea at the heart of Blink is actually rather straight-forward and easy to understand, but most of the book is deliberately repetitive and simplified to make it accessible to an even broader audience. While a number of the examples discussed show surprising applications to this counter-intuitive idea, the educated reader will find that his understanding of the subject is not marginally enhanced by any significant measure after the first chapter. In short: a breezy read that, unfortunately, didn't teach me as much as I'd hoped. Nice Thanksgiving-break reading, though. Easily finishable on two airplane flights.

Read it
Skim it
Toss it