What to Read Next: April 11, 2025
Issue #374, featuring Malcolm Gladwell's latest
Happy Friday readers!
Here is what’s on tap this week:
A review of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revenge of the Tipping Point
The best economics books I’ve read
Some words on parting with books
Read More Books is a reader-supported publication. Paid subscribers get full access to every issue and the archives. Subscribe today for just $5/month or $45/year.
Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
For about ten years at the start of this century, Malcolm Gladwell was basically a guarantee to hit the bestseller list and take over airport bookshelves. The Tipping Point, Outliers, What the Dog Saw . . . I read all of them well over a dozen years ago and the titles easily come back to me.
In the last decade, he hasn’t been quite as prolific (at least in terms of books) and has encountered more scrutiny — which is bound to happen as more success comes your way.
For the first time in a long time, I grabbed Gladwell’s newest book, The Revenge of the Tipping Point (published last fall), and was quickly reminded why he was so popular in his heyday. I understand some of the critiques (though I think they’re generally overblown) of his writing, but there’s no denying that he’s a superb storyteller. I was immediately sucked into the book and always eager to pick it up again.
Covering seemingly disparate stories like vaccine hesitation, cheetah epidemics, suicide rates, and the spread of COVID, Gladwell uses this book to look at the dark side of the “tipping point” — that moment where something changes from a novelty to a trend and then an uncontrollable wildfire. Ultimately, he asks how much control we have over the spread of some undesirable action or outcome, and how to get over the roadblocks that keep us from seeing those things.
That said, there aren’t any easy answers. Unlike Gladwell’s earliest books, he asks more questions and does more in the way of opening your eyes instead of providing resolutions. Both my wife and I enjoyed The Revenge of the Tipping Point and I can happily recommend it to a wide variety of readers.
Quick format note: the audio production was fantastic. Definitely go that route if you’re into audiobooks.