Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell. The latest from social scientist and storyteller Gladwell takes a seemingly simple subject and shows how complicated it can get. Using the tragic case of a police interaction gone wrong as a frame for the beginning and end of the book, he pulls examples from history and recent headline-grabbing scandals to illustrate his premise that understanding or just making sense of strangers is difficult. Whether it's misinterpreting signals or assuming the best of people, the average person can easily be fooled - duped into believing something that's not true or unwilling to accept deceptive behavior as such. 

 

 

Some reviews have opined that some of the author's explanations are a bit simplistic for the situations described. While it's clear that "a failure to communicate" and police training that teaches skepticism fueled the Sandra Bland tragedy, racism seems a likely contributor as well. But Gladwell doesn't seem to be overly concerned. In a recent interview, he said, "I've never been a writer who's looked to persuade his readers; I'm more interested in capturing their interest and curiosity." Good answer.