How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville
Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual
assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the
way we relate to each other that isn’t true?
While
tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a
book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook
version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people
he interviewed–scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually
hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in
Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial
of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from
many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There’s even a theme
song – Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout.”
Something
is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to
make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to
talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways
that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.
